A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
