A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure 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 news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*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 killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
