A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
