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A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen 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 preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.

Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid