A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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 rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
