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An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.

Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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