An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
