The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows

Professors Ingle and Sutera (editors of Gender and Genre in Sports Documentaries) deliver an ambitious if haphazard survey of “one of the most highly sought-after properties in contemporary Hollywood production,” from the 1940s to the present day: the superhero. The wide scope—which covers everything from the 1950s series Adventures of Superman to contemporary anime series My Hero Academia and the extensive Marvel Cinematic Universe—is impressive. Yet while the authors wisely avoid ranking their top 100 in numerical order in favor of allowing films to be examined “for their distinctive merits,” the choice to list entries alphabetically, as opposed to chronologically, creates some dissonance (a discussion of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, for example, counterintuitively comes before 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War). Sections include cast and production details, one-sentence film synopses, and commentary that’s inevitably spoiler-laden and laced with the authors’ personal takes (that, for instance, Jack Nicholson’s Joker is equally as memorable as Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning portrayal). The areas of focus are often perplexing, too—in one section, they make the questionable move to weigh in on CBS’s scantily clad Wonder Woman in the 1970s, claiming her portrayal wasn’t “as exploitative” as other shows: “Despite being skimpily dressed, Wonder Woman’s body is always shot in long shots and medium shots.” This needs rescuing. (Feb.)