The Year's Top-Grossing Films Instructed Us to Take Down the Elite Yet Again. We Continue to Refuse to Listen.
An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
