An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
