An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
