An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies 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 powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
