A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
