An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
