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An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. 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 inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.

In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid