A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
