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A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Film Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Outliers

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid