🔗 Share this article

A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid