A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. 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 eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
