A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly 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 ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
