A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause 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 excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
