An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
