The Year's Most Popular Films Told Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Still Refuse to Listen.

A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Release That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious 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 operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid