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An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.

There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Fails to Transform

However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid