Version Control: Which ‘Superman’ Makes the Most Powerful Movie?

Remakes, reimaginings, and readaptations have been a part of the movies as long as the medium has existed. With the series Version Control, Jesse Hassenger explores stories with multiple notable incarnations throughout cinema history, to help determine which movie version may be right for your streaming needs.

Superman was not the first superhero character ever created; masked and/or caped heroes, otherworldly powers, and valiant do-gooding all predate his 1938 debut in Action Comics #1. But Superman was the character that brought all this stuff together (well, except the masks) to eventually become an international phenomenon. Accordingly, he was also the first superhero to star in a genuine big-screen blockbuster, a stunning 11 years before even 1989’s Batman (which itself was 11 years before X-Men kicked off the superhero cinema gold rush of the 2000s and beyond). Given how long Superman has existed in the public consciousness, it’s actually a wonder how relatively few big-screen versions there are; as many people played Batman in the ’90s alone as played Superman between 1978 and 2010. But Big Blue is getting some reboot catch-up as James Gunn’s universe-starting Superman opens in theaters this week, introducing a new actor following the uneven run of Henry Cavill, who played the character on and off for a decade starting in 2013.

Naturally this raises the question: Which first Superman movie is right for you? The popular consensus is that Christopher Reeve did it best, but is that just firsties bias or nostalgia kicking in? On the other hand, how does the new guy stack up against his historical competition? Is it better to start with an origin story or jump right in? Fortunately, Version Control is flying to the rescue with this rundown of every major big-screen Superman since 1978. (Yes, there were big-screen serials featuring the character in 1948 and 1950, but they have more in common with the subsequent live-action TV series than the movies that followed.) This covers Superman debuts only; no sequels or spinoffs that feature the character, not least because they’re rarely as good as the first flight. So let’s leap through them in chronological order.

1. Some actors never outrun their signature roles because they seem to have a limited amount of on-screen magic or range or luck. Others never outrun them because they’re so immediately iconic. There have been guys who played Superman in both of those categories; the late Christopher Reeve undeniably belongs in the latter. Across four films and nearly a decade, he truly brings Superman to life; you’ll believe a man can fly, as the tagline at the time said, not because the special effects are so out of this world, but because Reeve makes that man so believable. He also commits so fully to Clark Kent’s awkward dorkiness that you can almost make out a barely perceptible wink behind his bumbling, but you never quite catch him betraying his secret identity. Even more impressive, some of the best bits of the first Superman movie happen before Reeve enters the picture, as it retells Kal-El’s origin story with some genuinely magical sequences set in Smallville. The transition to Metropolis is eased by Reeve and Margot Kidder, who makes a great Lois Lane. But eventually, the movie bogs down a little in, of all things, Gene Hackman’s performance as Lex Luthor, which steers the movie toward shtick. Still, watching the original film is now a particularly bittersweet experience, because Reeve, Kidder, and Hackman are no longer with us.

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3. Nearly 20 years after Christopher Reeve’s final Superman film, the low-budget and ill-regarded Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Warner Bros. attempted a verb-centric mid-2000s reboot more or less in parallel with the previous year’s Batman Begins – though not set in the same universe, because that wasn’t really the deal at the time. In fact, while Batman Begins took great pains to hard-reset the character after increasingly campy installments in the ’90s movies, Superman Returns went the other way, attempting to serve as a sequel to the original films. More specifically, director Bryan Singer wanted to follow up the first two Superman movies, not the third or fourth films. It’s an odd project, to sequelize two particular movies while ignoring two others, all with an entirely new cast, often playing characters in markedly different registers. Not only that, the project now feels more than a little cursed; despite grossing almost the same amount as Batman Begins, it failed to inspire a new series and, moreover, has the unfortunate retroactive creep factor of being directed by Singer and co-starring Kevin Spacey. And yet! Superman Returns itself is actually pretty terrific. It both captures the innocence of the Donner original and recontextualizes it in a kind of melancholy, bittersweet tone that a lot of people at the time (and since) misinterpreted as “Superman as a lonely stalker.” But Superman can be lonely, at least, and Singer’s film, anchored by an underrated performance from Brandon Routh, brings alienation into the character without making him seem like an antisocial monster. Speaking of which, look, up in the sky…

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4. The first hour of Zack Snyder’s more serious, gritty take on Superman is terrific. In fact, a whole movie as good as the time-scrambled chronicle of Clark Kent’s sci-fi origins, angsty youth, hobo phase, and early days of Supermanning might well be in contention for his best-ever big-screen incarnation (not to mention Snyder’s best movie). But despite being played by the always-welcome Michael Shannon, General Zod throws the movie off-axis and turns it into an endless smackdown between two ultra-superpowered beings. Some of this is pretty cool in that there hadn’t really been a superhero movie to show what happens when two god-like dudes just absolutely go at it. But a little goes a long way, and the sequence feels endless before it climaxes with Superman forced to commit murder to save someone, which, hey, maybe would work in a movie that feels more vested in those kind of moral dilemmas. But Man of Steel feels like it’s constantly creating moral dilemmas (like Pa Kent’s off-putting ideas about how Clark should protect himself by staying hidden and not helping people) out of nowhere, then marinating in them endlessly as if they’re age-old philosophy texts. Granted: It’s not Henry Cavill’s fault. In fact, he better integrates Clark’s ramrod-straight honesty with Superman’s conflicted heroism better than anyone before him; Reeve and to some degree Routh play Clark more like he’s a smokescreen, which feels more in line with earlier comics and the TV show. Cavill is playing a more modern version of the character. But he’s stuck in a movie that goes way off the rails, and his presence in the DCEU never really recovered.

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5. The Superman saga comes full-circle with another movie called Superman, though this one is vastly different in approach from the others because it starts with humanity already familiar with the Man of Steel – and other superheroes, with B-listers casually popping up throughout James Gunn’s reboot. That angle alone lends the Gunn version some automatic freshness, as does his refusal to superficially “ground” the story of a godlike superhero with grit and angst. That’s not to say this Superman is conflict-free; in fact, he arguably gets beaten up more consistently than any of the previous versions, both physically and (sigh) online. David Corenswet does a laudable job making Superman (and Clark Kent) seem otherworldly in his wholesomeness yet human in his flaws (yes, he does have them), and Gunn has a gift for making all of his characters – Superman, Lois, Krypto the super-dog (!), and all those B-squad heroes in the supporting cast – funny without reducing them to canned sarcasm. The movie is funny and silly, but not snarky. Perhaps most importantly in a world of superhero movies trying and failing for some imagined level of sophistication, a lot of kids will love this Superman, which is a big change from the grimness of Man of Steel.

THE VERSION CONTROL VERDICT: SUPERMAN (2025)

Somewhat counterintuitively, the strongest movie for Superman beginners may be the one that spends the least amount of time dramatizing his origin. The 1978 movie does that beautifully, but falters a bit in its second half, and while Superman Returns is very good, much of its effectiveness depends on knowledge of the earlier films. Despite being chockablock with DC Comics lore, the new Superman doesn’t require much previous knowledge yet also avoids belaboring the backstory stuff. It’s not even necessarily the best Superman movie so much as the best starting place, particularly for younger viewers.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.