A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
