A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*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 executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
