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A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit 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 contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, 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 colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid