Superman

Superman (1978) — watch online on iFILM. Richard Donner's landmark sci-fi adventure set the template every superhero film since has borrowed from. Christopher Reeve plays Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, and makes you believe a man actually can fly. Marlon Brando appears as his father Jor-El in a casting choice that treated comic-book mythology as seriously as Greek tragedy.

When Krypton faces total destruction, Jor-El seals his infant son in a rocket aimed at Earth. The boy grows up in a Kansas farmhouse, then reinvents himself as Clark Kent — bespectacled reporter at the Daily Planet, mild and forgettable by design. Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) is right beside him every day and still doesn't connect the dots. Lex Luthor, played with ice-cold wit by Gene Hackman, meanwhile engineers a real-estate scheme that would wipe the California coastline off the map. Only one thing stands between him and success.

Composer John Williams wrote the main theme here, and it remains the sound most people hear when they picture a superhero. The practical effects — pre-CGI, pre-digital, built on wire rigs and optical tricks — still hold up because Donner refused to cut away from the hard shots. Stream Superman (1978) on iFILM.