Every 'Superman' movie, ranked by critics
Superman movies have been a moneymaker since Christopher Reeve starred in 1978's "Superman: The Movie."
Here are all the "Superman" movies, ranked by critics from worst to best.
The son of Krypton is finally back in theaters.
The beloved character, who first appeared in a 1938 comic, got his first big-screen depiction forty years later, when Christopher Reeve took on the role in 1978's "Superman: The Movie," cementing Superman's place in pop culture lore.
Since then, many more actors have played Superman, to varying degrees of critical acclaim.
More recently, director Zack Snyder's now-defunct DC Extended Universe era showcased a darker side of Superman through Henry Cavill 's performance.
Now, "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise director James Gunn is trying his hand at a Man of Steel movie, with David Corenswet playing the character in the latest era. Gunn's "Superman," which also stars Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, harkens back to the lighter tone of the Reeve era, when Superman's priorities were striving for truth, justice, and preserving the American way.
How does the new movie compare to previous depictions of the comic-book icon? Here are all the "Superman" movies, ranked by critics' scores on Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics saw 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" as nothing more than a cash grab.
Marking the final time Christopher Reeve played the superhero, "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" is an example of doing a movie for all the wrong reasons: namely, money.
Though Reeve got a larger salary and more creative control, The Cannon Group's takeover of the franchise led to corner-cutting, resulting in a film that lacked depth and production value. It was a dud.
Zack Snyder couldn't live up to the hype with 2016's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
Three years after Henry Cavill came on the scene as Superman in "Man of Steel," director Zack Snyder put together the ultimate faceoff: Superman versus Batman.
Two comic-book icons finally sharing one screen meant the hype for the movie was through the roof. But ultimately, Snyder couldn't deliver. Cavill plays a Superman who is too tortured, and though Ben Affleck is impressive as Batman, the corny connection between Superman and The Dark Knight (both their mothers are named Martha!) is unforgivable.
1983's "Superman III" lacked the great storytelling of previous movies.
After the massive success of "Superman II," a third movie was fast-tracked. Gene Hackman didn't return as Lex Luthor, but Richard Pryor was added as a bumbling tech whiz who goes up against Superman, getting a $5 million paycheck for his efforts.
It resulted in a flat story that lacked the high stakes of the previous films.
Critics were mixed on 2013's "Man of Steel," which marked Henry Cavill's debut as Superman.
For Henry Cavill's first movie as Kal-El, he nailed the character's look and physique, but his performance is more moody thanks to Zack Snyder's direction.
The interpretation polarized critics, setting the stage for how audiences would treat Cavill's entire run as Superman.
2006's "Superman Returns" is an impressive entry in the franchise.
Between Reeve and Cavill was Brandon Routh's time wearing the red cape.
Though it was brief, audiences enjoyed his depiction of the superhero — quite the feat, given that Reeve's portrayal was still highly regarded by fans.
2025's "Superman" impressed critics.
David Corenswet is perfectly cast as the Man of Steel in James Gunn's take on Superman. The movie's playful tone, which devotes screen time to Kal-El's superpowered dog, Krypto, keeps it entertaining for both kids and adults.
Everything about 1978's "Superman: The Movie" is perfection.
After decades of trying to get Superman to the big screen, director Richard Donner was the man to finally pull it off. He cleared the biggest hurdle by casting Superman right with the choice of Reeve, a physically impressive actor who also had the acting chops to land the emotional scenes.
A cast filled out by heavyweights like Marlon Brando as Superman's father, Jor-El; Glenn Ford as his Earth father, Jonathan Kent; Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane helped cement the movie a beloved work decades later.
1981's "Superman II" pulls off the unthinkable: being better than the original.
One of the rare sequels that's better than the original, the dual storylines of Superman being willing to let go of his powers to be with Lois (Kidder), and General Zod (Terence Stamp) escaping exile to come to Earth to destroy Superman with the help of Luthor (Hackman) are perfectly crafted.
Plus, the big showdown between Superman and Zod on the streets of New York City is a feat of 1980s practical effects.
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Atlantic
14 minutes ago
- Atlantic
This Is Love for Precarious Times
The first time I watched Too Much, Lena Dunham's return to scripted television after a seven-year hiatus, it felt impossibly disappointing—visually flat, almost defiantly unfunny, more cringeworthy in its reliance on Anglo-American culture clashes for charm than Mary-Kate and Ashley trying to get a royal guard to crack a smile. The premise: Jess (played by Hacks ' Megan Stalter) is a New Yorker working in advertising production who's offered the chance to move to London when her relationship catastrophically implodes. (Dunham, as ever daring us to try to like her characters, has Jess, in the first episode, breaking into her ex's apartment and terrorizing his new influencer girlfriend while brandishing a garden gnome.) Arriving in London, Jess has a chance encounter with Felix (Will Sharpe), a broke musician, in a particularly vile pub toilet. Both are hapless in different but complementary ways—Jess tells Felix how to wash his hands, Felix helps Jess get home when she accidentally orders her Uber to Heathrow. These are hard times to be a romantic, especially on Netflix. Two years ago, on a New Yorker podcast lamenting the modern state of the rom-com, Alexandra Schwartz noted that the most crucial quality for any romance is this: 'You have to believe that these two people want to be together, and you have to buy in.' On this front, Too Much barely even tries. Stalter is wackily endearing as Jess, and Sharpe adds brooding complexity to Felix's offhand charm. But as screen lovers, the pair have almost negative chemistry, coming together with a shrug and staying together out of what feels like inertia. Initially, this set my teeth on edge—two characters with seemingly little interest in each other being paired off with the chaotic insistence of a child making her soft toys kiss. But the more I've come back to the show, the more its slack, unromantic approach to love looks intentional. Jess and Felix couple up not because they're giddy with feeling, drunk on proximity and intimacy and connection, but because each offers something specific that the other person needs. Too Much is co-produced by Working Title, and the names of its episodes nod to some gooier rom-coms served up by the company in bygone days: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill. But in the place where the show's heart should be is instead pure pragmatism: This is love for a cold climate. If you compare Too Much with Celine Song's recent film, Materialists, in which every character sizes up romantic prospects with the agenda of a hiring manager, you can sense a theme. Can we afford to actually fall in love now? In this economy? Dunham presents infatuation as nonsensical, or even destructive: The best episode of Too Much is one that details the breakdown of Jess's seven-year relationship with Zev (Michael Zegen), a wannabe music writer who appears like a white knight in a bar one night when she's lost her friends and her pizza (nobly, he secures another slice) and immediately dazzles Jess into submission, charming her family, devising kissing rituals scored to songs, even massaging her grandmother's feet. Quickly, though, he sours. When she moves in with him, he's outraged by the fact that so much of her stuff is pink. He sneers at her love for Miley Cyrus power ballads and mocks her need for affection. 'I swear you dress as a fuck you to people sometimes, Jess,' he tells her, when she puts on a sailor smock to go out. The longer she loves him, the more contemptuous he becomes. Felix, by contrast, is cool from the start. No one is better than Dunham at writing sympathetic fuckboys, men in varying stages of arrested development who are unpleasant in uniquely beguiling ways. At the pub, Felix treats Jess like a kind of curiosity (she is, in fact, wearing the very same sailor smock that we later learn Zev had been so cruel about). It isn't until he sees the coziness of Jess's rental apartment that something seems to click in his mind in an enticing way, like a modern-day Elizabeth Bennet reconsidering her feelings for Mr. Darcy after she first visits Pemberley. Jess, somewhat randomly, tries to kiss Felix; Felix, perturbed, admits that he has a girlfriend and leaves. He walks around for a bit listening to Fiona Apple and smoking, then goes back to Jess's place, where he finds her being hosed down in the shower by a baby-faced paramedic after having accidentally set her nightgown on fire. Somewhat incredibly, he stays. Too Much gestures at the rom-com, but it seems more enamored with the sitcom, particularly the low-fi, edgy, slightly manic mode of British comedies on BBC Three: Fleabag, Pulling, Coupling. Compared with Dunham's Girls, whose direction and cinematography specifically emulated Woody Allen and Mike Mills, it's a strangely unprepossessing show, the kind that more typically gets pulled together cheaply on the British taxpayer's dime. In a bottle-ish episode early on, Jess and Felix stay up all night in her apartment, having sex, eating takeout pho, and ignoring each other's emotional cues. (He tells her about being grossed out by an ex when he once saw her eating cold Chinese food with a look of blank desperation; later, in secret, Jess shovels cold noodles into her mouth with the same vacancy.) The characters do antic, no-stakes things that require little explanation and often defy logic. Felix goes to claim unemployment, telling the officer assessing him that if he gets a job, he won't have time to write music. Jess goes location scouting with a hotshot director, almost has sex with him in a firelit four-poster bed, then shows up outside Felix's window, begging him to move in with her. Late in the series, Jennifer Saunders appears playing a character identical to Absolutely Fabulous 's Edina, down to the selfsame styling and vocal delivery. But with help from flashback episodes, the show also starts to lay out why Felix and Jess might be drawn to each other. Jess, still devastated from her breakup and friendless in London, finds instant stability in Felix as someone who'll care for her, even if, subliminally at least, she seems to see through him. Like so many Dunham heroines, Jess is a perplexing mix of intuition and delusion; she offers Felix a joint bank account after they've been together barely a week, but also correctly identifies that his total lack of ambition fits awkwardly with her pride in her work. If, as an actor, Stalter sometimes seems less convincing than Dunham was at pulling the combination off, it's because it's an exceedingly difficult register to play in. Walking up to a guest at a wedding, Jess introduces herself by saying, 'Wearing neutrals is like a way of saying you've given up, right?'—a line so thoughtlessly rude that even Hannah Horvath might blanch. Felix, whose childhood is revealed to have been unloving and unstable, seems to see in Jess something like instant security: not just a warm person with a home that's much more welcoming than his chaotic squat full of eco-warriors, but an insta-family. If their relationship skips the heady, obsessive crush phase to get straight into a comfortable, stolid, domestic mode, maybe it's because that's what both of them are really yearning for. Initially, something about Too Much 's insistence on citing rom-coms in its episode titles while so stubbornly resisting romance felt galling to me. The quality that draws us to, say, the tortured off-on dynamic of Connell and Marianne on Normal People or the unbreakable bond between Nora and Hae Sung in Past Lives is the idea that love is somehow transcendent, that it elevates humans above the level of mere existence. But realistically, what is love if not care and attention? And what are care and attention if not expressions of tenderness and regard? Dunham buries clues throughout Too Much that seem to suggest what she thinks about men and women: Matrimony, Felix's father tells his wife late in the show, comes from the Latin words mater, meaning 'mother,' and monia, meaning 'activity'—it's about preparing a girl to be a mother, and in many ways, a maternal dynamic is exactly what both Felix and Jess are craving. 'You're like this alien,' Jess tells him in the final episode, 'but you also feel like home.'
Newsweek
14 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Best Historical Home Tour
Andrew Low House Museum | Savannah, GA Photo courtesy of Andrew Low House Museum Photo courtesy of Andrew Low House Museum Once owned by Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, the Andrew Low House Museum preserves the rich and complicated heritage of an 1850s Southern seaport city. Throughout, you'll see the family's prized possessions, from 18th-century porcelain to a rosewood writing desk often used by the Lows' famous visitors. And you can stroll through one of Savannah's only remaining antebellum gardens before relaxing under the shade of the Natchez crape myrtles. Biltmore Estate | Asheville, NC Photo courtesy of Daniel Wright/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of Daniel Wright/iStock by Getty Images Hidden in Western North Carolina's mountains is the majestic Biltmore Estate, America's largest privately owned home. You can explore its 8,000 acres of pristine gardens, greenhouses and forest trails after a tour of the 250-room Gilded Age mansion (which covers 4 acres) or a tasting at the award-winning winery. The house has more than just period furnishings; world-class art from masters like Albrecht Dürer and Claude Monet graces the walls. Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum | Key West, FL Photo courtesy of Petr Kahanek/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of Petr Kahanek/iStock by Getty Images See what inspired one of the 20th century's most influential American writers inside the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, from the massive in-ground pool—the first ever built in Key West—to the famous cat population that has descended from Hemingway's favorite cat, Snow White. Want to channel the creative spirit of Hemingway? The Evening Writing Experience lets you freely wander the grounds and writing studio to hunt for your own inspiration. 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Hearst Castle | San Simeon, CA Photo courtesy of simonkr/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of simonkr/iStock by Getty Images You may forget you're in California and not the European countryside as you take in the grandeur of Hearst Castle. Spanish ceilings from the early 1400s, ancient Egyptian and Greek art, the brilliant blue Neptune Pool—there's so much art and architecture to admire. There's a tour for every taste, whether you want to see the mansion's luxurious rooms, the cozy kitchen and guest cottages, or the moonlit sculpture gardens. Hills & Dales Estate | LaGrange, GA Photo courtesy of ablokhin/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of ablokhin/iStock by Getty Images While the property's Callaway house, a stunning Georgian Italian villa built in 1916, is definitely worth touring, the 35 acres of formal gardens at Hills & Dales Estate is the big attraction. The meticulous flower beds and winding paths existed decades before the house, lovingly designed and planted by one woman who wanted blooms and fragrance year round. It's now one of the best-preserved 19th-century gardens in the nation. Marland Mansion | Ponca City, OK Photo courtesy of Gregory_DUBUS/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of Gregory_DUBUS/iStock by Getty Images Known as the "palace on the Plains," the Marland Mansion was the vision of an eccentric Oklahoma oil baron almost a hundred years ago. Life-size statues of the Marland family, extravagant Italian architecture inspired by a palace in Florence, hand-painted ceilings and hand-carved wood walls—every square inch of this National Historic Landmark is lavishly adorned. Want to add some palatial pizzazz to your next party? You can rent the mansion. McFaddin-Ward House | Beaumont, TX Photo courtesy of pidjoe/iStock by Getty Images Photo courtesy of pidjoe/iStock by Getty Images The turn of the 20th century's opulence is on full display at the McFaddin-Ward House, a Beaux Arts beauty built during the first Texas oil boom. Tour guides take you through three furnished floors filled with history as well as seasonal exhibits (the glitzy holiday dresses and priceless dinnerware are popular draws) and the Carriage House's antique gym equipment. The best part? Tours are free! Molly Brown House Museum | Denver, CO Photo courtesy of Molly Brown House Museum Photo courtesy of Molly Brown House Museum Beautifully eclectic and Victorian, the charming Molly Brown House Museum celebrates the life of the Unsinkable Molly Brown, who became world famous for surviving the Titanic shipwreck. Once you pass the giant lions and sphinx that guard the entrance, you'll be ushered inside to see Molly's collections (almost 10,000 items!) from her years as a world traveler—including a library that's stacked from floor to ceiling with books and souvenirs. Pabst Mansion | Milwaukee, WI Photo courtesy of Pabst Mansion Photo courtesy of Pabst Mansion Take a trip back to the Gilded Age at the Pabst Mansion, where the family's famous brewery and love for European art shine. On Sundays, you can sip champagne as you wander the elegant home (Blue Ribbon beer tours are available too) and take in its music room that hosted the late 19th century's most popular musicians. All three floors are fully accessible, so everybody can admire the ornate decor. Taliesin West | Scottsdale, AZ Photo courtesy of Taliesin West Photo courtesy of Taliesin West Frank Lloyd Wright wanted a winter home and studio in a warm place with dramatic landscapes, so he chose the Sonoran Desert for Taliesin West. The nature-inspired complex almost disappears among the rocks and sand used to craft each building. Explore the visionary architect's workspace, including his draft room where some of the world's most iconic buildings were first put on paper. Photos are allowed, so snap some architectural inspiration! The House of the Seven Gables | Salem, MA Photo courtesy of The House of the Seven Gables Photo courtesy of The House of the Seven Gables Over 350 years old, this mansion by the sea brims with history: the House of the Seven Gables is one of the country's largest timber mansions still on its original foundation. The home features prominently in a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, adding to its fame. When you're not perusing the Georgian splendor inside or treating your little historian to kid-friendly activities, check out the mansion's events, including spooky bashes in October. Winchester Mystery House | San Jose, CA Photo courtesy of Winchester Mystery House Photo courtesy of Winchester Mystery House The infamous Winchester Mystery House took 36 years to build, starting as an eight-room farmhouse and ending as a sprawling 160-room mansion. Filled with 19th-century curiosities, architectural oddities and paranormal activities, this bizarre home is a place of intrigue that's drawn millions of visitors over the decades. Each fall, the house comes to life during Festival Fright Nights with food, entertainment and special tours that might leave you haunted.
New York Times
14 minutes ago
- New York Times
Stan Douglas and the Double Life of Images
I knew Vancouver before I ever saw it. I knew it from late-night movies and second-string TV shows, from '80s and '90s American productions — '21 Jump Street,' 'The X-Files' and the like — that were filmed in the discounted climes north of the border. 'Hollywood North,' as they used to call it, almost never got to play itself onscreen: The streets around Vancouver's False Creek were recast as San Francisco or New York, and the victims of American horror movies fled through British Columbian forests. The cinema was born in Lyon, it was industrialized in Los Angeles, but Vancouver is the city made of moving pictures. Vancouver's role as Hollywood's secret twin has always seemed suitable to Stan Douglas, the Canadian artist gripped by images and their doubles. Since the 1980s, working in still photography, broadcast television, room-filling video installation and even theater, he has reimagined the widest currents of history as mirror images and not-quite-clones. 'Ghostlight,' an ambitious retrospective that opened recently at Bard College here in the Hudson Valley, includes some of his most important works in video and photography, built out of 18th-century archives and 21st-century tech. (Given recent presidential designs on a new state north of the 49th parallel, the show also offers an opportune reminder of the distinct dimensions of Canadian art and history: where it dovetails with America's, and where it diverges.) The show at Bard — organized and cunningly paced by Lauren Cornell, the artistic director of the college's Center for Curatorial Studies — captures Douglas's commitment to art as a practice of reconstitution: of putting the past in the service of the present, restaging turning points and letting the strings show. To make 'Luanda-Kinshasa' (2013), he invited the pianist Jason Moran to lead a fictitious 1970s jam session, which Douglas filmed in the manner of Jean-Luc Godard's Rolling Stones doc 'Sympathy for the Devil.' For a permanent commission of mural-size photos at New York's Moynihan Train Hall, he commandeered a Vancouver hockey arena for tableaus vivants of hundreds of actors — each performing a real episode of war heroes, labor activists and tabloid murderers who really passed through the old Penn Station. For 'Birth of a Nation,' his intricate and shocking new five-screen video work at Bard, he wrote an entire screenplay adapting D.W. Griffith's noxious epic — which we never hear, as the video is silent. All of which is to say that if you like your history at name-check depth, you can stick with the Guggenheim this summer. This is serious art for serious people, and Douglas's imposing videos and photos have bibliographies to match: Brush up on your Beckett and Freud. Douglas was born in Vancouver in 1960, and his early work (regrettably absent here) paid close attention to the psychological underside of Hollywood cinema. His interests grew more historical in the 1990s, and his greatest hits of that decade are at Bard — the first being 'Hors-Champs' (1992), his very first multi-projector installation. For 'Hors-Champs' Douglas gathered four American musicians (three Black, one white) who had lived in Paris during the late 1960s, and invited them to perform Albert Ayler's 1965 'Spirits Rejoice': a quicksilver composition of free jazz, associated as much with Black nationalism in the United States as with left-wing agitation in France. The black-and-white image looks like an old videotape, with its soft edges and noisy backgrounds. In fact, Douglas shot this himself on a Paris soundstage, using old cathode ray tube cameras, mimicking the shot-countershot editing and monochrome stages of 1960s European TV. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
