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An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid