An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
