Ranking Every DC Movie Villain From Worst To Best
6. Lex Luthor - Gene Hackman (Superman, II & IV)
Some might say that Michael Rosenblaum's performance on Smallville deserves to be classed as the greatest Lex Luthor, but Gene Hackman's is the outright front-runner. He offers perfect balance to Superman's stoicness and straight-laced morality, and while he doesn't push it as far as Heath Ledger did as the Joker, he's an agent of chaos.
He would never exist outside of the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeves Superman universe with its nostalgia-protected silliness - he's too comedic to fit with the later darker films and the audience has moved on - but he is contextually perfect. He has the traditional superiority complex, but he also balances it with a perpetual exasperation because very little actually goes his way.
He's as spirited as he is ludicrous - requesting Australia in return for helping General Zod - but he's jarringly quite light-hearted. His insanity manifests itself in an almost hedonistic quest to have fun while he's taking over the world, but he's still completely fearsome. And there's something wonderfully appropriate about the fact that Hackman seems to be intent on stealing every scene he's in: it's the most Luthorian thing possible.
The Superman 5 Film Collection is available to buy over at Amazon.