An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded 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 class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
