A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
