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An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Fails to Transform

However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid