An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From 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 whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
