An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
