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A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid