An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around 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 assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
