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A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.

It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exclusions

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid