A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed 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 shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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
