A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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
