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A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exclusions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid