A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
