A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
