A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
