A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
