Every Live-Action Superman Movie Ranked By Superness

While his cultural popularity might have waned a bit in favor of another edgier cape-wearing crimefighter, there’s just no disputing that Superman is the blueprint for the entire superhero genre as we know it today. Had he not debuted in Action Comics #1 almost 90 years ago, there’s a strong possibility that there would be no Fantastic Four, or Spider-Man, and definitely no Invincible. Not only has he remained culturally relevant to this day, but his presence has been tethered to some of the biggest changes in the comics industry – moments like Crisis on Infinite Earths and The Death of Superman were defining points for the Silver Age and Modern Age, respectively.

That outsized cultural presence naturally means that the Man of Steel has long soared off the page and onto the screen. It only took ten years after his comic book debut for him to show up in live–action for the first time with a 1948 self-titled film serial, and since then Superman has been in projects as varied as the 1950s classic Adventures of Superman to the new millennium melodrama Smallville to the current animated My Adventures With Superman.

While Superman doesn’t have as many theatrically released films under his belt as the Dark Knight, he absolutely has enough for a somewhat comprehensive ranking of each of his Hollywood outings. Without even counting the original Kirk Alyn film serials (divided up into fifteen parts each) or the George Reeves film Superman and the Mole Men (a test-run that served as the two-part pilot to the TV series), Superman’s history on the big screen is a fascinating look at how the character has changed over the decades, and what makes him such an eternally beloved cultural fixation.

To be clear, we’re excluding the various animated movies, as well as the TV shows. We’re also not including the Kirk Alyn serials, because while those did appear in movie theaters, it would be hard to consider those serials to be self-contained movies in the conventional sense.

12. Superman and the Mole Men (1951)

While the George Reeves TV series is perhaps the most famous on-screen version of Superman (following the Kirk Alyn movie serials), that TV show did begin, oddly enough, with a movie. The 1951 B-movie, Superman and the Mole Men, is basically the first theatrically released Superman movie that feels like what we’d call a movie today. Is it great? Sadly no. While George Reeves’ Superman could arguably rank very high in terms of actors doing a great Superman, Superman and the Mole Men is not his greatest outing. For that, you need to watch the classic TV series.

11. Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987)

Although Christopher Reeve’s intentions were in the right place when he agreed to return as Superman for a fourth film tackling the pressing issue of nuclear disarmament, his moral convictions were unfortunately not enough to save The Quest for Peace from itself.

From the beginning, the movie was seemingly doomed by circumstance – after the negative critical reaction to Superman 3 and the financial failure of 1984’s Supergirl, the Salkind family (producers on the franchise since the original) sold the film rights to The Cannon Group, who underwent their own financial troubles on the eve of Superman 4’s production. The result was nothing short of underwhelming, a sequel that lacked the flashes of VFX brilliance and rich characterization that made the Donner films work; and to add insult to injury, a whole 45 minutes of the film was shaved by the studio in the aftermath of a disastrous test screening. It’s no wonder that the movie dashed plans for Superman 5 and set the character on ice for almost 20 years.

10. Superman III (1983)

After the resounding successes of Superman and Superman II, it’s baffling to imagine the third film could squander that goodwill by becoming a comedy featuring Richard Pryor, but it makes sense when you consider the behind-the-scenes context. When Richard Donner departed the franchise during the making of Superman II, he took his plans for a sequel (which would have involved Brainiac) with him; a few absurd script rewrites later (one which would have featured the obscure Golden Age villain Mister Mxyzptlk) and you get Superman 3, a film with a handful of interesting ideas held back by a lack of clear direction or tonal consistency regarding any of them.

A corrupted Superman or an evil tech billionaire as the antagonist don’t sound bad in theory, but they’re combined with director Richard Lester’s penchant for jarring slapstick comedy and a bumbling Richard Pryor performance that feels like it’s from another movie. Unlike The Quest for Peace, which feels quite lacking, Superman III suffers from feeling far too overstimulating.

9. Justice League (2017)

There’s so much that could be said about the version of Justice League that collapsed a budding universe, but from the perspective of a ranked list of Superman movies, the biggest flaw in Warner Bros. and Joss Whedon’s Frankstein’s Monster of a movie is how hollow its treatment of the character really is. Whedon was brought on as director to course-correct from Zack Snyder’s more self-serious treatment of the DC brand, and you can see just what a pendulum swing it is from the film’s infamous opening scene – one in which Superman (looking scarier than usual due to the digital removal of Henry Cavill’s Mission: Impossible mustache for reshoots) spouts empty platitudes about hope on a Snapchat video.

Whedon’s Superman was a deus ex machina with an unearned smile, resurrected simply to beat the bad guy and reaffirm that this Superman is happy now. Whatever the problems of Snyder’s DCEU were, the weightless tonal shift towards empty optimism found in Justice League’s theatrical cut was not the solution.

8. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is, without a doubt, one of the most contentiously debated superhero movies of all time, but for all the debate on whether or not it’s a misunderstood masterpiece or a degradation of beloved characters, it’s a movie that’s decidedly uninterested in one-half of its titular match-up. While Ben Affleck’s Batman is rich in pathos and clearly the film’s driving force, its Superman is deeply reactive and static in comparison. His all-consuming dourness as a result of being mistrusted by the world comes at the expense of not just the warmth you’d expect from the character, but also his humanness.

It’s one of many flaws in a movie already bogged down by a convoluted and overstuffed screenplay, and even the central fight feels entirely avoidable and narratively contrived. Some of the blame falls on studio interference, and even then it certainly has its virtues (like Larry Fong’s mythic camerawork or the Batman action sequences ripped straight from a fanboy’s dream), but ten years later it still feels too heady at the expense of real substance.

7. Superman Returns (2006)

Its reverence for the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve era is both Superman Returns’ greatest flaw and its greatest strength. There’s an undeniable power to how well Bryan Singer mimics the touchstones of those films: from the aesthetic resemblance between casts to how perfectly John Ottman interpolates John Williams original score, every bit of it is designed to juxtapose the simplicity and purity of Reeve’s Superman against an era that may have moved on. It’s a touching love-letter to the franchise that birthed the modern superhero movie, but its slavish adherence only opens it up to undue comparison. As hard as he tries, Brandon Routh was still too green in 2006 to compare to Reeve’s complexity and effortless charisma, and you can feel it in the lack of chemistry between him and Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane.

The film’s 2-hour-and-34-minute runtime does it no favors either; for how long it is, it’s surprisingly uneventful and never really fulfills the promise of a Superman reckoning with how drastically different the world of 2006 really is. While contemporary reviews were favorable, it underperformed at the box office, and its biggest legacy is convincing WB that it was finally time to move on.

6. Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

While Zack Snyder’s long-awaited Director’s Cut of Justice League shares similar plot beats to the theatrical in regards to Superman, they feel pretty distinct from each other, with the cohesion of character found in the later edition giving it a clear edge. Superman isn’t perfect in ZSJL – he does, after all, spend most of the movie dead and is still resurrected as a deus ex machina. But there’s something about the way Snyder treats the vacuum left behind by his passing that feels genuinely emotionally affecting, and Snyder’s cut also gives us the space to see Clark reconnecting with the world and the people he’s left behind, including Batman, that actually earns the (admittedly late) optimistic arc he undergoes by the finale.

Fans will never get to see the full scope of Snyder’s vision (including the post-apocalyptic nightmare unleashed by a grief-stricken Superman), but Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a fine send-off for Cavill’s version of the character.

5. Superman II (1981)

The Superman franchise has had an unfortunate history of ousted directors and studio interference, and that began with the theatrical cut of Superman II. By the time Richard Donner left production on the film, he had already shot around 75 percent of the sequel (both the original and its follow-up were shot back-to-back), and by the time it was released in theaters, only 30 percent of his footage remained, the rest supplanted by reshoots done by replacement director Richard Lester.

You can feel the impact all over a film that, while still good, is hampered by the kind of juvenile humor Lester would go on to overload Superman 3 with. It’s also easy to recognize the ways in which the movie is at odds with itself and its place as a direct sequel, such as the reshot escape of the Kryptonian criminals or Superman randomly gaining the ability to wipe memories with a kiss (Donner’s original time-reversal ending was cut and used to complete the first movie). In a vacuum, it’s a fun sequel, but in context it leaves a little to be desired.

4. Man of Steel (2013)

If ZSJL was the tease for a character arc we’d never get to see come full circle, then Man of Steel was the initial promise of a version of Superman that held a lot of potential. Not only did Snyder take a granular, complexly human approach to Clark Kent’s upbringing on Earth, but he brought a level of space-opera spectacle to the final days of Krypton that fully immersed viewers in what the Richard Donner films only teased at. Man of Steel truly committed itself to an origin in the sweeping vein of Batman Begins, long before it would redefine superhero spectacle with a fight sequence between Superman and General Zod that felt like two gods battling.

It’s a shame that so much of the film’s second act is spent circling the drain or catching Clark up with a plot we already know, because there are truly flashes of brilliance bogged down by filler and unimportant side plots. Even with the criticism levied towards the destruction of the finale, Man of Steel felt like fertile ground for a new imagining of the character cut short.

3. Superman (2026)

The first Superman solo film in 13 years, James Gunn’s Superman had to both launch a brand new cinematic universe and tell a focused story for the character, and it mostly succeeded at both. While Snyder’s Superman languished in passivity, David Corenswet’s first outing rests entirely on the actionability of Superman’s moral convictions – it’s a near-perfect combination of the charming good nature of Christopher Reeve with the “what does Superman mean in our modern world” musings of Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. But instead of being content with just simple deconstruction, James Gunn weaves those bigger questions into a “Week In The Life” structure that pays homage to the character’s zany Silver Age shenanigans – one minute he’s intervening in an active foreign war zone, the next he’s rescuing a metahuman baby from an anti-matter river. It’s also the first time in a long while that Superman’s supporting cast has felt this relevant, and even the presence of the Justice Gang is centered on how Superman’s fortitude inspired them. It was a great launching pad for a new cinematic universe, but just like Snyder’s, it’s now one we may not get to see.

2) Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1981/2006)

The footage shot by Donner for Superman II remained dormant for 27 years, until it was compiled into The Richard Donner Cut in 2006 to coincide with the release of Superman Returns. Which is a shame, because it feels like a blueprint for every superhero sequel to come afterwards. It’s darker, courtesy of Terrence Stamp’s deliciously despotic performance as General Zod (with no cheap comedy to undercut his performance). It’s action-packed, as the Kryptonian siege on the White House or their showdown with Superman in Metropolis exemplifies. And it also feels like a continuous sequel to the original, with Superman’s actions at the end of the first movie directly spiraling into the conflicts he faces in the sequel.

Admittedly, the film uses some of Lester’s footage and alternate takes to supplement the footage that Donner never got to finish, but the end product is undoubtedly far closer to what Donner intended, and it’s all the better for it.

1. Superman (1978)

The tagline promised that you would believe a man could fly, and audiences at the time certainly did. Superman is the grandfather of everything that superhero films represent today, and there’s a reason why it’s still one of the best. Not only did it introduce all the necessary elements (the psychological impact of the origin story, the crucial romance, the villainous foil), but it also linked them to archetypal Hollywood genres (the coming-to-manhood drama, the screwball comedy, the disaster flick). The result was a marriage of the high pulp bombast of comic book worldbuilding with the risk-taking spirit of New Hollywood studio filmmaking, a match made in heaven.

Christopher Reeve’s layered, lived-in performance became the benchmark that people to this day judge performances as the character by, and Richard Donner combined genuine human drama with complicated SFX spectacle in a way that superhero movies are still trying to replicate. Almost 50 years later (and with maybe another Superman reboot on the horizon), there are still lessons that the superhero movie genre can learn from its ancestor.

All the Superman movies are streaming on HBO Max. Superman and the Mole Men can be rented on YouTube.