A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
