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A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.

There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid