A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper 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 more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. 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 forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
