2025's Top-Grossing Blockbusters Instructed Us to Take Down the Elite Once More. We Still Refuse to Listen.

A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated 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 take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Release That Alters Little

And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, 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 wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid