The Year's Biggest Films Told Us to Take Down the Elite Yet Again. We Still Aren't Listening.
An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
