A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy 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 prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
