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An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Film Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid