An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
