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A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.

There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.

If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid