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An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.

It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*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 improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exclusions

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid