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A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.

In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid