This Year's Biggest Films Told Us to Take Down the Elite Once More. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
