A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
