A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
