A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
