This Year's Most Popular Movies Told Us to Consume the Wealthy Again. We Yet Ignore the Message.
A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
