An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of 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
