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A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies 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" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Exceptions

A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply 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 possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid