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A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming 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 function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid