A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
