A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
