A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
