Kara Zor-El spends her 23rd birthday drunk on a red sun planet, and that single image tells you everything about DC’s boldest gamble yet. Supergirl trades Metropolis for a grimy cosmic road trip built on grief, revenge, and one poisoned dog. Craig Gillespie’s film gives the Girl of Steel her messiest, angriest screen incarnation ever. Buckle up, because we are spoiling absolutely everything below.
Detailed Summary
A Birthday Bender Under Red Suns
Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) opens the film mid-bender, drinking her way through dive bars on red sun planets just to feel something as she approaches 23. Red suns strip her powers, which means the alcohol actually works.
Calls from her cousin Clark go unanswered, she falls asleep on the toilet, and Krypto treats her entire ship as his personal bathroom. It is a hilariously undignified introduction for a superhero.
Krem Destroys the Knoll Family
Meanwhile, tragedy strikes on a distant farming world. A band of space pirates called the Brigands arrives at the home of the Knoll family, whose patriarch Elias (Ferdinand Kingsley) is known for his craft in weaponry; their leader, Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), wants the weapons for himself.
Elias hands over the key to his stash, but when his son Emond tries to intervene, Krem throws a knife into the boy’s back. Young Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) survives the massacre and swears vengeance.
A Drunk Hero Says No
Ruthye tracks Kara to a bar and begs for help. Despite being on a red sun world and very drunk, Kara is shocked when a brute strikes her and draws blood, mirroring the opening of the comic.
Kara refuses the job; she wants no part of a child’s revenge quest. Consequently, fate has to force her hand.
Krypto Gets Poisoned
Krem tries to steal Kara’s ship, Krypto senses the danger and defends it, and Krem shoots the dog with poison before escaping with the vessel. Suddenly this fight becomes deeply personal.
Kara joins forces with Ruthye to find Krem, obtain the cure for Krypto, and get revenge. She needs the antidote within three days to save Krypto’s life.
Lobo Enters the Chase
Supergirl and Lobo battle the Brigands together, with Lobo specifically hunting a pirate named Drom. Jason Momoa plays the Main Man as a gleeful agent of chaos.
Krem kills several hostages during the skirmish before escaping, and Ruthye blames Kara for the deaths. Guilt now fuels Kara’s hunt as much as anger does.
Grief on Bilquis
On the planet Bilquis, Kara explains the fall of Krypton to Ruthye and delivers the film’s central speech on grief, warning that revenge will not ease the pain of loss. This quiet scene is the emotional core of the whole movie.
Flashbacks confirm a Pre-Crisis style origin: Kara was born eight years after Krypton’s destruction and raised on the floating remains of Argo City. Another flashback shows Superman first finding Kara on Earth, when she still spoke only Kryptonian.
The Green Sun of Barenton
Kara finally lands on Barenton, a planet with both a green and a yellow sun; the green sun works like kryptonite and severely weakens her. Her powers vanish exactly when she needs them most.
Ruthye drags a debilitated Kara into a cave for safety, then ventures out for water and gets captured by the Brigands. Everything now hinges on a sunrise.
Movie Ending
Dawn breaks over Barenton, and the green sun gives way to yellow. Restored to full power, Kara almost single-handedly destroys the Brigands’ ship and frees the hostages, with Lobo tossing grenades before riding off into the sunset. Krem’s crew even injects her with kryptonite-laced poison, yet she keeps coming.
Then comes the moral crossroads. Ruthye confronts Krem with her sword, ready to kill him, but Kara pleads with her to stop, arguing that living a long and beautiful life is the ultimate revenge.
Here is the twist nobody saw coming. Kara takes the sword from Ruthye, then kills Krem herself, driving the blade into him. She absorbs the moral cost so the child never has to.
The film closes on Earth. Kara and Krypto visit Clark’s high-rise apartment, where he admits he could have used her help in his last battle, and Kara tells him she plans on staying home. That conversation directly sets up her role in Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2027).
Are There Post-Credits Scenes?
No. There is no post-credits scene, which is unusual since this marks the first DCU movie without one.
Do not read that as a dead end, however. Kara is confirmed to return in Man of Tomorrow, so her story continues.
Type of Movie
Supergirl is an action, adventure, and sci-fi film that plays like a space western wrapped around a character study. Think revenge quest first, cape movie second.
Tonally, it swings between raucous comedy and raw grief. The story is rooted in loss, isolation, and self-discovery, yet Gillespie keeps the ride irreverent and fast.
Cast
- Milly Alcock – Kara Zor-El / Supergirl
- Eve Ridley – Ruthye Marye Knoll
- Matthias Schoenaerts – Krem of the Yellow Hills
- Jason Momoa – Lobo
- David Corenswet – Clark Kent / Superman
- David Krumholtz – Zor-El
- Emily Beecham – Alura
- Ferdinand Kingsley – Elias Knoll
- Diarmaid Murtagh – Drom Baxton
Film Music and Composer
Claudia Sarne composed the score, released by WaterTower Music on June 26, 2026. Sarne, a British-American composer known for Black Mirror, Triple 9, and The Book of Eli, became the first woman to score a DC feature film.
Getting there was chaotic. Ramin Djawadi was originally announced as composer, then Tom Holkenborg replaced him, before Sarne took over the job.
Notably, the standout track is “Supergirl Suite,” which builds from ethereal vocals and moody synths into a full statement of Kara’s soaring theme. A slowed-down version of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” also plays during the climactic final fight.
Filming Locations
Production was based at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Hertfordshire, about 20 miles northwest of London. Soundstages gave the team full control over the film’s many alien worlds.
For exteriors, the crew went remote. Gaick Pass in the Cairngorms of Scotland served as the site of Kara’s interplanetary trailer, and the team traveled to South Iceland to shoot alien-world sequences. Those stark landscapes sell the loneliness of Kara’s exile far better than any green screen could.
Principal photography ran roughly five months, starting in January 2025 and wrapping in May 2025.
Awards and Nominations
Supergirl released in June 2026, so awards season has not yet weighed in. No major wins or nominations exist at the time of writing.
Behind the Scenes Insights
- Writer Ana Nogueira was hired by November 2023, Alcock was cast in January 2024, and Gillespie joined the project that May. Casting the star before the director is a rare move.
- James Gunn felt Alcock had the edge, grace, and authenticity to distance this Kara from Melissa Benoist’s more earnest Arrowverse portrayal.
- Alcock revealed that her first day on set was opposite David Corenswet.
- The film originally carried the subtitle Woman of Tomorrow, which was dropped by June 2025.
- The production budget came in at roughly $170 million.
- Industrial Light and Magic handled visual effects work on the film.
Inspirations and References
The movie is largely inspired by Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s eight-issue Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic series. Several sequences translate panels almost shot for shot.
That comic wore its own influences openly. Krem in the original story functions as a close analogue to Tom Chaney from True Grit, a sniveling coward and opportunist, and the whole child-hires-a-hardened-gunslinger structure echoes that western classic.
Alternate Endings and Deleted Scenes
No official alternate ending or deleted scenes have been released so far. That said, the ending itself was a deliberate departure baked in from the start.
Nogueira said the confrontation between Kara and Krem was in her pitch from the very beginning, because the comic’s far-future time jump was never going to work in the film. Interestingly, Tom King’s original comic pitch was a team-up between Supergirl and Lobo, an idea editors rejected before Ruthye replaced him; the movie finally puts Lobo in the story anyway.
Book Adaptations and Differences
Yes, this is a comic adaptation, and the changes are substantial. In Woman of Tomorrow, neither Kara nor Ruthye can bring themselves to kill Krem; in the film, Kara executes him.
His comic fate is stranger and arguably crueler. Krem is imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for 300 years, after which Kara brings him to an elderly Ruthye; he begs forgiveness and she answers with a whack of her cane.
Other shifts abound. In the comic, Krypto secretly receives the antidote early and recovers, a truth Kara hides from Ruthye, whereas the movie plays the poisoning as a genuine ticking clock. The film also cuts the comic’s grim Maypole detour, uses the planet Bilquis in its place, and adds Lobo as a brand-new element. Krem himself gets upgraded too; in the comic he is a handsome humanoid who joins the Brigands late and never leads them.
Memorable Scenes and Quotes
Key Scenes
- Kara’s opening bender montage, capped by Krypto’s bathroom crimes aboard the ship
- Krem shooting Krypto with the poisoned weapon, the moment that ignites the plot
- Kara and Ruthye’s quiet conversation on Bilquis about Krypton’s fall and the futility of revenge
- Powerless Kara collapsing under Barenton’s green sun while Ruthye drags her to shelter
- Sunrise on Barenton, followed by Kara tearing through the Brigands at full power
- Kara killing Krem after talking Ruthye out of it
- Kara and Clark’s apartment scene, where she finally chooses Earth as home
Iconic Quotes
- “Any day now.” Kara’s scoffed reply when Ruthye asks when she stopped being angry about Krypton
- “Krypton didn’t die in a day. The gods are not that kind.” A line lifted from the comic, though spoken by Ruthye on the page and by Kara on screen
Easter Eggs and Hidden Details
- A Daily Planet newspaper appears in the opening scene, with credited reporters and photographers all named after members of the production team, plus a mention of the Metropolis Mammoths hockey team
- The planet Holzherr honors Brittany Holzherr, the DC editor who oversaw the comic, while the planet Bilquis nods to artist Bilquis Evely
- Kryptonians invoke “Great Rao,” referencing the god named after Krypton’s red sun, first mentioned in 1972’s Superman #248
- Lobo rides his iconic Spacehog, the flying motorcycle with a skull bumper from the comics
- Barenton and its deadly green sun come straight from Woman of Tomorrow #5
- Kara wears a Blondie shirt for most of the movie and calls one ugly alien “Squidward”
- Seth Rogen voices the scene-stealing little bus attendant
Trivia
- This is only the second film in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DCU, following the 2025 hit Superman
- Krypto belongs to Kara in the DCU, not Clark, making the dog one of the last surviving pieces of her Kryptonian childhood
- The project burned through three announced composers before landing on Claudia Sarne
- The Argo City flashbacks adapt Woman of Tomorrow #6, itself a modern retelling of Kara’s original origin from Action Comics #252
- Clayface, the next DCU release, is deliberately set before this film in the timeline
Why Watch?
Because it dares to make a Kryptonian broken, bitter, and human. Milly Alcock delivers a raw, funny, wounded Kara unlike any before her. In addition, you get Lobo, a killer soundtrack, and a genuinely shocking ending. Superhero fatigue never stood a chance.
Director’s’s Other Movies
- Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
- Fright Night (2011)
- Million Dollar Arm (2014)
- The Finest Hours (2016)
- I, Tonya (2017)
- Cruella (2021)
- Dumb Money (2023)
