A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
