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A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.

Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated 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 gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Outliers

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid