An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
