A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
