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A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Outliers

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid