A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
