An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
