An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
