2025's Top-Grossing Films Instructed Us to Consume the Wealthy Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening.

An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of Film Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.

In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*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 shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

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

Key Outliers

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid