This Year's Most Popular Films Told Us to Consume the Wealthy Again. We Continue to Ignore the Message.

A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.

There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exceptions

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