This Year's Most Popular Films Told Us to Take Down the Elite Yet Again. We Yet Aren't Listening.
A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
