An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, 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 "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
