A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range 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 ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
