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A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.

A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Alters Little

And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid