An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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
