A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
