'Batman v Superman': Their History at the Movies

Ben Affleck as Batman and Henry Cavill as Superman in ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice brings the titular superheroes together on screen for the first time since the characters leaped from comics to film in the 1940s. Here’s a quick timeline of their movie milestones, followed by our awards for their biggest cinematic achievements and flubs.

1941 — Superman debuts in an animated short from Fleischer Studios. When production wraps in 1943, he’ll have featured in 17 stylish, distinctive cartoons. Watch some here and get a taste in the clip below:

1943 — Batman (played by Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Douglas Croft) battle an evil Japanese scientist on behalf of the U.S. government in their first 15-part live-action serial.

1948 — Superman, played by Kirk Alyn, gets a 15-part live-action serial of his own, facing off against villainess The Spider Lady.

1949 — Batman and Robin, now played by Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan, square off against The Wizard, a mysterious figure with a device that controls cars, in their second 15-part serial. Watch Episode 1, “Batman Takes Over”:

1950 — Kirk Alyn returns for a second 15-part live-action serial, Atom Man vs. Superman.

1951 — George Reeves stars in hastily filmed B-movie Superman and the Mole Men, then stays for TV’s The Adventures of Superman, which aired from 1952 until the actor’s death in 1959.

1966 — Batman: The Movie supersizes the hit TV series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin for a big-screen showdown with the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman. It’s fun, and endures as a campy treat, but it kind of flopped at the time.

1978 — In its day, Superman with Christopher Reeve as the hero, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor was the most expensive film ever made. Its mix of action, romance, and comedy essentially set the template for the modern superhero flick.

Christopher Reeve in ‘Superman’ (Warner Brothers/Everett)

1981 — Superman II was intended to be shot back-to-back with Superman, but director Richard Donner fell out with producers. The sequel that eventually arrived three years later was uneven, but arguably better than its predecessor thanks largely to Terence Stamp’s villain General Zod.

1983 — Superman III had a less tumultuous production, but resulted in a less satisfying movie. Richard Pryor’s computer hacker character gives the film, in which the Man of Steel is corrupted by Kryptonite, a lighter tone. It was poorly reviewed, but box office remained solid.

1987 — Superman IV: The Quest for Peace suffered badly from low production values, a goofy tone, and a preachy plot about nuclear power, leading to rotten reviews and terrible box office. Reeve would later call his final film as the Man of Steel “a catastrophe from start to finish.”

1989 — Tim Burton’s Batman, with Michael Keaton in the title role, sat among the all-time top 5 at the box office for a while. It won praise for its spectacular sets and Jack Nicholson’s turn as the Joker, though his scenery-chewing arguably unbalances the movie.

Michael Keaton in ‘Batman’ (Photo: Everett)

1992 — Burton’s freak flag flies in Batman Returns, which starts with Paul Reubens throwing a baby in a sewer and ends with penguins firing missiles. Danny DeVito’s Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman again overshadow Keaton as hero, but it’s much better than Burton’s Batman.

1993 — Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a direct-to-video feature spun-off of much-beloved Batman: The Animated Series, ended up getting a theatrical release, and deservedly so — it’s one of the best Bat-films ever, pitting Bruce Wayne against a murderous vigilante.

1995 — Burton and Keaton declined to do a third Batman movie, so director Joel Schumacher and star Val Kilmer stepped in for Batman Forever, joined by Chris O’Donnell as Robin, and Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones as the bad guys. The tone was a tribute to the campy ‘60s TV show: box office was good, fan reception less so.

1997 — Worse was to come, though, with Schumacher’s Batman and Robin, in which George Clooney replaced Kilmer, and our heroes battled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy. Even more garish and juvenile than Forever, it’s frequently cited as the worst superhero film ever.

Watch the ‘Batman and Robin’ trailer:

2005 — Eight years later, with the superhero genre reinvigorated by X-Men and Spider-Man, Bruce Wayne made a glorious feature film return in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, which took a semi-realistic approach that inspired rave reviews and launched a hugely successful trilogy starring Christian Bale.

2006 — Nearly two decades after The Quest for Peace, Clark Kent returned to the big screen in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, with Brandon Routh as the hero and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. The film was a self-conscious homage to the 1978 original, to a fault, but has its moments.

2008 — Nolan’s sequel The Dark Knight reached a level of success unseen by any other superhero movie, with rave reviews, eight Oscar nominations, and $1 billion earned. Sadly, Heath Ledger, who gave an extraordinary performance as the Joker, passed away six months before release.

2012 — The final film in Nolan’s Bat-trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, was a satisfying wrap-up, if not as universally acclaimed as its predecessor. The absence of Ledger undoubtedly took a toll, but the film’s sheer scope, and a strong turn from Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, helped it persevere.

2013 — With Nolan as executive producer, Man of Steel tried to do for Superman what Batman Begins had done for Gotham’s finest. Zack Snyder’s film has moments of real awe and wonder, but just as many that are tin-eared or ill-conceived. We’ll see if Snyder’s Batman v Superman gets a better reception.

2016 — Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice takes in $166.1 million at the U.S. weekend box office, the fourth best start ever for a superhero film, despite weak reviews.

Best and Worst of the Batman-Superman Movies: Our Picks for…

Best Villain
Terence Stamp’s Zod and Phantasm from the animated Batman are worthy baddies, but this is no contest: Heath Ledger’s Joker takes the prize with a truly chaotic and utterly original take on Bruce Wayne’s most famous adversary.

Terence Stamp talks playing Zod:

Worst Villain
Nuclear Man from Superman IV and Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin are awful (and that’s not a compliment to their villainy), but the worst has to be Dr. Daka, the Japanese scientist who plotted against Batman and Robin in the World War II-era serial. It might have been wartime propaganda, but it feels queasily racist today.

Best Robin
Burt Ward’s take in the 1960s series and Batman: The Movie remains definitive: Brave, quick with a quip, and utterly loyal.

Best Fight
Despite its troubling disregard for civilian safety, the climactic city-smashing battle between Henry Cavill’s Superman and Michael Shannon’s Zod in Man of Steel is as spectacular a superheroic punch-up as we’ve seen on screen.

Best Set-Piece
Superman Returns frequently gets slammed, but it has one absolutely killer action sequence, as our hero rescues a plummeting, disintegrating plane on which Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane is trapped.

Best Love Interest
On the whole, Batman and Superman movies don’t have great roles for women: Even an actress as great as Amy Adams fades into the background in Man of Steel. The big exception was Michelle Pfeiffer, who tore up the screen as Catwoman in Batman Returns.

Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in ‘Batman Returns’ (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Best Evil Scheme
Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor certainly thinks outside the box in 1978’s Superman, conceiving a plan to sink California, thus turning the desert he owns into oceanfront property on America’s new West Coast.

Worst Use of an A-List Actor
Plenty of big name stars have been ill-used in Batman or Superman movies — Russell Crowe in Man of Steel, Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight Rises — but Nicole Kidman’s severely underwritten love interest Dr. Chase Meridian in Batman Forever feels like a particular shame.

Best Theme Song
For all their faults, the Joel Schumacher Batman movies did have pretty good music. U2, R. Kelly, and The Smashing Pumpkins all contributed good work, but it’s Seal’s Grammy-winning “Kiss From a Rose” that’ll be best remembered.

Best Gadget
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be hard-pressed to top the 1966 Batman: The Movie, which finds our heroes dangling from a ladder beneath a helicopter, using custom-made shark-repellent bat spray to fend off what is quite obviously a rubber shark. Watch the scene here: