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A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exclusions

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid