A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, 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 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 take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message 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 pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
