An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
