A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
