A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
