An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured 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 killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
