An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
