A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely 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 notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
