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A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid