An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated 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 up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
