A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised 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 presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
