A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. 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 exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
