10) Lex Luthor – Kevin Spacey, Superman Returns
Recommended Videos
With its dreary plot and over-reliance on callbacks to the Christopher Reeve movies, 2006’s Superman Returns was not the revitalization of the Man of Steel that DC were looking for. One thing that did work, however, was Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Unlike the more recent appointment of Jesse Eisenberg in Batman V Superman, Spacey was a natural choice for the role.
Though Gene Hackman gave the more iconic performance, Spacey was a fitting replacement and was able to strike a similar balance between ham and menace. Closer to the comics, this Luthor was hellbent on defeating Superman as a means of proving his intellectual prowess. That said, he still shared Hackman’s love of nonsensical schemes to take over the world with real estate.