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An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally 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 clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid