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A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid