A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*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 packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
