This Year's Most Popular Films Told Us to Consume the Wealthy Again. We Yet Refuse to Listen.
A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
