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An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.

In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid