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An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*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 ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid