A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
