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A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, 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 — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*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 point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid