A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
