A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
