A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — 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 idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like 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. Given 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 content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
