An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
