An age-old motif runs through a host of 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 antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting 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" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
