10 Reasons Why Richard Donner's Superman Is Still Awesome

There are superior versions of Luthor in other forms of media, but Gene Hackman's portrayal of Superman's nemesis is not only the best on celluloid but an incredibly entertaining villain in his own right.

Sure, he's the neither the mad scientist of the classic comics nor the scheming businessman he was reinvented as post-Crisis, but Hackman's Luthor is here reimagined as the in-fashion antagonist of the era: a James Bond villain.

Think about it: he's got an eccentric lair refashioned out of an abandoned train station, a bumbling henchman in Otis, a femme fatale with Miss Teschmacher, a visual quirk with his wigs compensating for his baldness, and an over-the-top plan to take over the world through unconventional means. With a few tweaks, Hackman wouldn't look out of place battling Roger Moore instead than The Man of Steel.

But what is Luthor's plan? To trigger the collapse of the San Andreas fault with nuclear missiles, sinking the west coast of California into the sea and making his currently-worthless land on its border prime beachfront property. It's a preposterous plan, but it works because there is a genuine threat to it.

Millions will die if he succeeds, and for good measure he sends another nuke in the opposite direction just to screw with Supes even more. Hackman may be playing the role over-the-top, but it's still an iconic performance that Kevin Spacey would go on to essentially replicate in Superman Returns, whilst Jesse Eisenberg... Let's just not, shall we?