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A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Release That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.

Key Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid