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An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.

A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid