A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
