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An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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 slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid