A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
