A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
