An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
