A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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 slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
