A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
