An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame 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 monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
