A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of 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
