A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
