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A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Changes Nothing

And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*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 shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid