A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier 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 angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
