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A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.

There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Release That Alters Little

However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exclusions

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* winds up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid