A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 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, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
