An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
