A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
