An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
