A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, 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 revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, 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 collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
