An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
