A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, 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 "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
