Superman

Superman (2025) opens with a countdown. Superpowered beings appeared on Earth three centuries ago. Thirty years ago, a baby arrived from Krypton in a ship and was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent in Smallville. Three years ago, he revealed himself to the world as Superman. Three weeks ago, he stopped Boravia from invading its neighbor, Jarhanpur. And three minutes ago, he lost a fight for the first time.

Clark Kent works as a reporter at the Daily Planet and has been dating Lois Lane for three months. She knows who he is. The Jarhanpur intervention, done without any government's approval, turns into a controversy in the U.S. and gives ammunition to anyone who distrusts an alien that powerful.

The one who beats Superman is a masked metahuman called the Hammer of Boravia. Hurt, he crashes into the Antarctic ice and whistles for Krypto, a superpowered, badly behaved dog he's looking after for a while. Krypto drags him to the Fortress of Solitude, where the robots heal him with solar radiation. That's also where he keeps the message his birth parents, Jor-El and Lara, sent with him. The recording is damaged and only the first half plays: they ask him to protect the people of Earth.

Back in Metropolis, Clark gives Lois an interview, and she presses him on Boravia. It turns into a couple's fight. Soon after, a giant monster attacks the city and Superman takes it on alongside the Justice Gang: Guy Gardner's Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific.

Lex Luthor, the billionaire behind LuthorCorp, breaks into the Fortress with the Engineer and the Hammer of Boravia, kidnaps Krypto, and restores the erased part of the message. In the second half, Jor-El and Lara tell their son to rule the Earth and take as many wives as he can to rebuild the Kryptonian race. Lex leaks it, and public opinion turns against the hero.

Superman is handed over to the government and ends up in Lex's prison inside a pocket universe. There he meets Metamorpho, who's forced to turn his own hand into Kryptonite because Lex is holding his baby son. Powerless, Superman watches Lex kill a prisoner named Malik Ali right in front of him. Metamorpho turns on Lex, and Lois and Mister Terrific find the prison and get Superman out.

To recover, he goes to Smallville. Jonathan Kent tells his son that his birth parents don't define who he is. What counts are the choices he makes.

Lex opens an unstable portal that tears Metropolis in half and threatens to swallow the city. Superman organizes the other heroes: some go stop Boravia's invasion, Mister Terrific works on closing the rift, and he takes on the Engineer and the Hammer of Boravia himself. The masked man is Ultraman, a clone Lex made from Superman's own DNA. In the fight, Ultraman falls into a black hole.

Meanwhile, Eve Teschmacher, Lex's girlfriend, sends Jimmy Olsen proof that Lex was helping Boravia in exchange for territory. Lois and Jimmy publish the story, Superman's name is cleared, and Lex is arrested. Facing him, Superman says he's as human as anyone: he loves, he gets scared, and he tries to do the right thing every day.

Near the end, his cousin Kara Zor-El shows up drunk at the Fortress to pick up Krypto. The dog was hers. Superman ends the film watching the Kent family's home videos.

In Supergirl (2026), Superman has a small supporting role next to his cousin. A flashback shows Clark welcoming Kara and Krypto when they land on Earth. In the present, she spends her 23rd birthday hopping between planets while he keeps calling, worried she never settles down on Earth.

At the end of the movie, Kara comes back, reunites with Clark and tells him she wants to stay for good. Earth is her home now.

The sequel is called Man of Tomorrow and is set for July 9, 2027. James Gunn writes and directs. The premise announced by the studio: Superman and Lex Luthor reluctantly team up against a bigger threat, the superintelligent Brainiac. David Corenswet, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan, and Milly Alcock return, and Lars Eidinger plays Brainiac. The movie hasn't been released yet.

Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and is considered the first superhero of American comics. James Gunn's movie borrows a lot of the tone of All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, and leans into the idea that it's his Kansas upbringing, not Krypton, that makes him a hero.