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An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit 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 riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exclusions

There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid