A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, 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 that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
