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A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.

A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.

Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid