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An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid