A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
