This Year's Biggest Films Instructed Us to Take Down the Elite Again. We Continue to Ignore the Message.
A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune 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 colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
