A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating 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 dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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
