A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
