The Original ‘Supergirl’ Movie Was Too Weird For 1984 - But That's Why It's A Cult Classic
For the first time since 1984, Kara Zor-El (a.k.a. Supergirl) is returning to the big screen with a solo live-action feature film. Supergirl (2026) is one of the first movies in the rebooted DC Universe under James Gunn and Peter Safran, and sees Milly Alcock as the titular hero. While fans are excited for the fresh new take on Kryptonian heroine, the 1984 adaptation should be remembered as a cult classic unlike any other.
Supergirl has a divisive legacy, proving to be a commercial and critical failure at the time but earning respect from fans many years later. The main reason for its cult classic status is because it's still one of the campiest, weirdest superhero films in history—proving to be far too strange for a mid-1980s audience. But upon reflection, the same quirks that led to the movie's failure are the same qualities that make it a cult classic in 2026.
‘Supergirl’ Had a Zany Premise That Keeps Getting Weirder
To understand how Supergirl ended up as a superhero oddity, you have to look back a little further than 1984: In 1978, Superman kickstarted the superhero era of Hollywood. Director Richard Donner handled Superman with a sense of reverence and a perfectly cast lead actor, Christopher Reeve. At the time, most superhero flicks were either cartoonish in their campiness (or just straight-up war propaganda) while Superman evokes feelings of wonder and inspiration.
Supergirl tried to leverage the success of Donner's Superman, but the spin-off starring Helen Slater as Kara Zor-El also aimed for a less serious tone. Whereas Superman told a mystical tale of a special boy saved from a dying planet, Supergirl tells a story about a… Omegahedron—which is a fancy name for a weird little ball of alien technology that powers Argo, the city Kara lives in. In Supergirl, Kara and a Kryptonian named Zaltar (Peter O’Toole) have been messing with the Omegahedron without the Argo City Council’s knowledge, and accidentally launch it into space, and must travel to Earth to retrieve it.
Supergirl's singular mission to retrieve the Omegahedron feels pretty simplistic compared to Kal-El's existence of Earth, which saw him become a symbol for hope and kindness to all humankind. But Supergirl's space-age macguffin is hardly the weirdest part of the movie. While the Omegahedron still feels like a storytelling device that belongs in the same ballpark as Donner's Superman, Supergirl takes a radically fantastical turn when Kara comes up against an aspiring witch called Selena (Faye Dunaway) and her love potion-infected, hunky groundskeeper, Ethan (Hart Bochner).
The plot is truly absurd but there’s a campy charm to it's unrestrained storytelling. It’s so 1980s-cheesy film-coded that you can’t help but enjoy it. Most importantly, Supergirl is never pretentious. It freely bends genres, and it's certainly never boring
We Need To Talk About That ‘Supergirl’ Cast
Aside from the movie's free-wheeling script, Supergirl stands out because of its unusual cast. At the time, superhero movies were largely seen as campy, cartoonish flicks that wouldn't necessarily attract the Hollywood elite. While Superman caused a stir by nabbing Marlon Brando for the role of Jor-El for an enormous sum, Supergirl took things way further with a stacked cast including Faye Dunaway, Peter O’Toole and Mia Farrow.
By 1984, Dunaway was already a three-time Oscar nominee, best known for her role as Bonnie in the biographical crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Network (1967). Meanwhile, O’Toole was a seven-time Oscar nominee and was (and still is) considered to be one of the greatest screen actors of all time. Both actors frequently took on complex dramatic roles, so it was quite a surprise to see Dunaway as a catty aspiring witch, O’Toole as a bumbling but well-meaning mentor, and Mia Farrow as Kara’s mother.
Still, despite the inclusion of at least three Hollywood heavyweights, the casting that undeniably works is Helen Slater as Kara. She brought an innocence and sense of hope to the role that perfectly captured her comic book counterpart. Still, there’s something very fun about spotting all the prestigious stars in their unlikely Supergirl roles.
‘Supergirl’ Marched to the Beat of Its Own Drum
What makes Supergirl so intriguing is that it was completely its own beast. Following the success of Superman and Superman II (1980), it had the opportunity to tie into the film series—long before the concept of expansive cinematic universes was common practice in Hollywood. Instead, Supergirl only connects to Superman through one actor: Marc McClure’s Jimmy Olsen. It’s easy to watch the film and miss that it exists in the same universe as Superman at all. Additionally, it broke tradition at the time with its genre-bending, prestigious cast, and absurd premise.
Supergirl didn’t just mix genres, it offered its own brand of feminism—flipping traditional gender roles by focusing on a heroine coming to the rescue of a hapless man. It did away with the straightforward, powerful flying scenes of Superman, replacing them with dream-like sequences of Kara flying with a gracefulness that feels like airborne ballet. Supergirl’s feminism and special effects weren’t perfect, but they were distinct and unusual enough to leave a mark on audiences.
In a genre where many films follow an archetype, Supergirl chose to do its own thing. It captured the glorious weirdness of the comic book world and demonstrated what a superhero movie could be through its feminist, coming-of-age, and fantasy elements. Supergirl may have been too weird for the ’80s, but it’s just the right amount of weirdness to make it memorable to modern audiences.
