A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This notion 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 vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
