A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
