A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*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 conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
