An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
