A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
