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An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated 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 wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exceptions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid