An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating 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 box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
