A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
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 particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid