An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious 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 rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
