An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
