A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
