This Year's Top-Grossing Blockbusters Instructed Us to Consume the Wealthy Once More. We Yet Ignore the Message.

An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, 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 — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Outliers

Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid