An age-old theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena 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 Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
