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A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

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 particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Key Exceptions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid