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A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.

It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid