An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
