A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
