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An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid