An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
