A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
