An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
