An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
