An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
