A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting 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 make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending 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.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
