A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming 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 societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*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 executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
