An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
