An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving 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 modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
