A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
