A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply 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 possible sequels. 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
