An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
