A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
