An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
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, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed 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 killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
