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A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.

There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Alters Little

However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Outliers

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid