A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
