This Year's Biggest Films Urged Us to Take Down the Elite Once More. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people 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. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
