A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
