A recurring motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, 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 that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
