A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
