A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
