An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like 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. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
