The Year's Most Popular Films Told Us to Consume the Wealthy Once More. We Yet Aren't Listening.
A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
