2025's Most Popular Films Urged Us to Consume the Wealthy Once More. We Continue to Ignore the Message.

An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid