A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, 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 nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
