The Year's Biggest Movies Urged Us to Consume the Wealthy Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
