This Year's Top-Grossing Movies Told Us to Take Down the Elite Again. We Still Aren't Listening.
An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only 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 a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
