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A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid