An age-old theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
