A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
