An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
