A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
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 confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
