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An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money 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 eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid