A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant 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 moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
