A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *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 financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
