An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
