A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
