A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
