A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
