A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, 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, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
