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A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

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

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid