An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
