An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
