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An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid