Supergirl

Our story doesn't start on Earth. It starts in the final, desperate moments of a dying planet. When the planet Krypton began tearing itself apart, scientist Zor-El — played by David Krumholtz — made a decision that would define his family's fate forever. Instead of perishing with the planet, he activated a powerful force field around Argo City — a chunk of Krypton — separating it from the planet's core just as it exploded. Billions died. But Argo City survived... at least for a while. In the years that followed, Zor-El's wife Alura — played by Emily Beecham — gave birth to their daughter, Kara. A child born on a drifting rock through space. The last gasping breath of a dead civilization. But fate had one more cruel trick to play. The separation from Krypton had exposed a deadly mineral underneath Argo City — Kryptonite. And its radiation was slowly, silently killing every single citizen. Alura was one of the first to fall. Kara watches her mother fade away. And before Alura dies, she pulls Kara close and whispers something the girl will carry for the rest of her life: "Be good. But being good doesn't always mean being nice." Those words will echo through the entire film. With no other options, Zor-El places Kara and her dog Krypto on a small spacecraft... and launches them toward Earth. Kara leaves behind her father, her home, her people, her entire world. She is a child. She is alone. And she is already carrying a grief that most people will never understand. Fast forward. Kara Zor-El is now 23 years old. She is supposed to be a hero. She is the cousin of Superman — the most famous man on Earth, the symbol of hope, the embodiment of everything good. But Kara? Kara is passed out on the toilet of her spaceship while Krypto uses the rest of the ship as his personal bathroom. This is how we meet our heroine. Played with raw, magnetic energy by Milly Alcock, this version of Kara Zor-El is nothing like the shiny, optimistic Supergirl you've seen before. She's sharp-tongued, reckless, and fueled by enough grief and anger to light up a star. You see, Kara has spent years wandering the galaxy — specifically seeking out planets with red suns because, for Kryptonians, red suns mean no powers. No super strength. No heat vision. No invulnerability. Just a girl who can finally get drunk and forget. She ignores video messages from her cousin Clark — David Corenswet — who calls her from Earth. Clark is calm, caring, eager. He wants her home. Kara swipes past his messages like they're spam. She's celebrating her 23rd birthday alone, with a glass of alien liquor and the company of her dog. That's her life. She and her cousin survived the destruction of Krypton — but they experienced it very differently. Clark was sent to Earth as a baby. He was raised by loving parents. He has a home, an identity, a purpose. Kara remembers everything. She watched Krypton die. She watched Argo City die. She watched her people die one by one. She landed on Earth to protect a baby cousin... who turned out to already be a grown man in a cape and didn't need her at all. That wound never healed. But tonight, the universe has other plans for Kara Zor-El. It starts when a gang of space pirates called The Brigands show up. These aren't just ordinary criminals. They are intergalactic traffickers — hunters who kidnap young women and girls from across the galaxy to sell to buyers who want to "continue an all-male race." They are led by a ruthless, scarred warlord named Krem of the Yellow Hills — played with cold menace by Matthias Schoenaerts. The Brigands crash into the same space where Kara is partying. And during the chaos, Krem fires a poison dart. It doesn't hit Kara. It hits Krypto. The dog yelps. He stumbles. His glowing eyes dim. And Kara — this broken, self-destructive, deeply grieving woman who has been numb to everything for years — feels it instantly. She is told the grim truth: Krypto has been poisoned. A very specific poison. And in three days, her dog will be dead. The only way to save him is to retrieve the antidote — and Krem is the only person who has it. For the first time in years, Kara Zor-El has something worth fighting for. She gears up. She sets off. But she's not alone. A girl appears. A teenage girl named Ruthye Marye Knoll — played by the remarkable Eve Ridley — holding a sword and burning with fury. Ruthye is on a mission of her own. Her father — Elias Knoll, a skilled swordsmith — was murdered by Krem. Her mother and brother were killed too, in a tragedy that unfolded because of a terrible, stupid accident. Her brother, wearing headphones, didn't hear intruders in the house. He jumped out to startle his little sister — and Krem, thinking it was an ambush, cut him down. Her parents fought back. Krem destroyed them all. Ruthye watched the whole thing. Now she has one purpose in life: Kill Krem of the Yellow Hills. She wants Kara to help her track him down. Kara says no. Kara doesn't do vengeance quests for strangers. But then Ruthye points out the obvious: they're both hunting the same man for different reasons. Reluctantly, furiously, Kara agrees to team up. An unlikely alliance is born — a bitter Kryptonian and a grief-consumed teenager — setting off together into the galaxy on a mission of poison, revenge, and unexpected connection. Their journey is dangerous from the very first step. Kara and Ruthye board a space bus to follow the Brigands' trail — and before long, the Brigands attack, hunting for more captives. The bus becomes a battlefield. Kara fights hard, protecting Ruthye and the other passengers, dispatching pirates left and right with her fists and heat vision. They survive. But Krem and his crew slip away. The chase continues across planets, alien bars, and hostile systems. The galaxy is not a friendly place — especially not when you're hunting one of the most feared traffickers in the cosmos. It's during this period that Kara and Ruthye begin to actually talk. Not just trade logistics — but talk. They find themselves on the planet Bilquis — a rough, grimy outpost world — and in a quiet moment amid the chaos, Kara finally opens up. She tells Ruthye the truth about who she is. About Krypton. About Argo City. About watching her mother die. About arriving on Earth to be a hero... and finding out nobody needed her. About the grief that has never gone away. Ruthye listens. And then she asks the question that cuts to the bone: "When did you finally stop being angry?" And Kara pauses. She scoffs softly — not a laugh, but something more complicated. And almost to herself, she says: "Any day now." It is the most honest moment in the film. And it changes everything about how we see her. But the conversation is interrupted, as things on Bilquis tend to be. Because on Bilquis, they meet someone new. A massive, gleaming, absolutely unhinged alien bounty hunter named LOBO. Played with wild, sardonic energy by Jason Momoa, Lobo is everything: dangerous, charismatic, deadly, and completely amoral. He kills for money. He parties harder than Kara. He once destroyed his own entire home planet — and he brags about it. Crucially — he is also hunting the Brigands. For a bounty. Their goals overlap. Not by choice. Just by the brutal logic of the galaxy. The Brigands attack Bilquis in force, looking for more women to abduct for their trafficking operation. Kara and Lobo tear through them with savage efficiency — a Kryptonian and a Czarnian obliterating pirates in a battle that scorches half the settlement. It's glorious mayhem. But the Brigands escape. Again. Krem is always one step ahead. Kara, frustrated and running out of time, does something morally questionable — she tracks down local space pirates with information on the Brigands and uses her heat vision to torture the information out of them, threatening horrific consequences unless they tell her where Krem is hiding. They talk. She gets a location. But the news is not good. Krem's base of operations is on Barenton — a planet with a very specific and terrifying astronomical feature. It orbits two suns: a yellow sun and a green sun. For a Kryptonian, a yellow sun is power. But a green sun? A green sun radiates energy similar to Kryptonite. It will strip Kara of every power she has. On Barenton, she won't be Supergirl. She'll just be a girl — vulnerable, exhausted, and completely outmatched. She goes anyway. Because Krypto has less than a day left. Kara lands on Barenton. And the moment she sets foot on its surface, under the glow of that cursed green sun, she collapses. Her strength drains away. Her invulnerability disappears. Her heat vision flickers out. The Brigands are everywhere — armed, armored, and aware she's coming. Kara is captured, beaten, overwhelmed. She is dragged through the dirt of this alien planet, shot with Kryptonite-infused arrows, poisoned again, hammered through walls by men twice her size. She is broken. And she lies there, drifting in and out of consciousness, having flashbacks. She sees her father, Zor-El, launching her into space. She sees her mother's face. She sees Clark — little baby Kal-El — drifting past her on his own ship as she arrived at Earth for the first time, only to find he'd already grown up without her. She sees all the people she couldn't save. She is alone. And she might die here. But then — a hand reaches out. It's Ruthye. The teenage girl — who Kara had explicitly told to stay behind, to stay safe — followed her across the galaxy anyway. She is terrified. She is furious at Kara for running off alone. But she is here. Ruthye drags Kara into a cave, hides her from the Brigands, and keeps watch through the night. "You're not always nice," Ruthye tells the barely conscious Kara, echoing her mother's dying words back to her. "But you are kind." Kara — barely alive, barely coherent — almost smiles. But while Kara recovers in the cave, Ruthye ventures out to get water for her — and is immediately captured by the Brigands. Inside their ship, Ruthye runs into another captive. Lobo — also captured. Also waiting. The two escape together in a chaotic, messy fight through the ship's corridors. But on the deck, Ruthye runs directly into Krem himself. He grabs her. He raises his weapon. And then the green sun sets. The yellow sun rises. And something in the cave opens its eyes. The warmth of the yellow sun hits the cave first. And Kara Zor-El — battered, poisoned, furious, and very much done with this entire planet — feels it. She feels the power flooding back into her veins. She stands up. Ruthye had brought Kara's Supergirl suit to the planet before everything went sideways. And in a moment the film has been building to since the very first scene — Kara puts it on. For the first time in the movie, we see her in full. The cape. The crest. The daughter of Krypton, finally ready. What follows is one of the most satisfying action sequences in the film. Supergirl tears through the Brigands like a force of nature. She moves at impossible speed, smashing through groups of fighters, deflecting their weapons, sending them scattering with blasts of heat vision. They try everything — Kryptonite-laced arrows, guns, bombs, orbital strikes from their ship. She keeps coming. Lobo joins in from his side, riding his space-cycle, swinging his spiked chain, absolutely delighted to be murdering space pirates for money. He cuts through the Brigands' numbers with violent, chaotic glee. And amid the fighting, Supergirl finds the Brigands' ship — where the women and girls they had kidnapped are still trapped in cages. She tears the ship apart and frees them. The rescued women don't just run — they fight back. Even the captives join the battle, turning the tide against the Brigands in one of the film's most cathartic moments. Finally, the last of Krem's men fall. And then there is only Krem. She has her blade against Krem's throat. He is at her mercy. After everything — her father, her mother, her brother, her entire world torn apart by this one man — she finally has her moment. And Kara steps in. Not to protect Krem. She doesn't care about Krem. She steps in to protect Ruthye. She has spent this whole movie urging Ruthye to walk away from revenge. To not let grief and rage define her entire future. Because Kara knows — from painful, personal experience — what happens when you let that darkness in. It doesn't make the pain go away. It just adds more weight. "Your life will be your revenge," Kara tells her. Ruthye hesitates. She looks at Krem. She looks at Kara. She thinks of her father. And she walks away. Ruthye Marye Knoll lowers her sword and walks away. It is an extraordinary act of self-control for a girl who has had nothing but vengeance on her mind for weeks. Then Kara turns back to Krem. And she kills him. Slowly. Deliberately. Without hesitation. She pushes the blade in and watches him die. This moment is crucial — and intentional. Because Kara is not a perfect hero. She is not Superman. She doesn't believe in mercy for men like Krem. She's seen what happens when monsters like him are left alive. She's lived in a galaxy full of them. She takes the antidote from his body. And without another word, she walks away. Lobo watches from a distance — sitting on his space-bike, cigar between his teeth — and gives them a slow nod of approval before riding off into the stars. They race back to the planet where Krypto is waiting. With seconds to spare, Kara injects the antidote. And Krypto — the ridiculous, wonderful, indestructible space dog — opens his eyes. He immediately starts playing. He licks Ruthye's face. He knocks things over. He is completely fine. Kara watches this and laughs — genuinely, warmly — maybe for the first time in the whole film. For a moment, everything is okay. But then comes the goodbye. Kara sits with Ruthye and realizes she cannot bring herself to just fly away. This girl who has no one — who came into her life as a stranger with a sword and an impossible mission — has somehow become the most meaningful companion Kara has had in years. She hesitates at the hatch of her ship. Then she turns around. "Do you want to come with me?" she asks. "We never did get to celebrate my birthday properly." And for the first time, Ruthye smiles. The film ends back on Earth. Kara returns to her apartment in Metropolis — a place she has barely inhabited, barely thought of as home. And waiting inside is Clark. Superman himself. He's there checking in on the apartment while she was gone. Krypto immediately starts going through the trash. Classic. Kara and Clark sit together. Two survivors. Two cousins. The last of their kind. Clark is calm. He's Clark. He's always calm. But there's something in his eyes — relief that she's back. Worry for what she went through. And Kara — this woman who has spent years running from Earth, running from herself, running from the weight of everything she lost — tells him something she has never been able to say before. She says she wants to stay. She says she's done bouncing around the galaxy. She's ready to be here. On Earth. With him. For the people who need protecting. It's not a grand speech. It's not a triumphant monologue. It's quiet. Almost shy. But it is everything. The girl who survived the destruction of an entire world, who drank herself through the galaxy trying to escape her grief, who fought through poison and green suns and space pirates... has finally found something worth coming home to. Clark smiles. Krypto destroys something in the kitchen. And for the first time, Kara Zor-El feels like she might be okay.

director

Craig Gillespie

writer

Otto Binder

Ana Nogueira

Jerry Siegel

Bilquis Evely

Bilquis Evely

Joe Shuster

Tom King

Jeremy Slater

Al Plastino

actor

David Corenswetas Superman

Matthias Schoenaertsas Krem

Diarmaid Murtaghas Drom Baxton

Ferdinand Kingsleyas Elias Knoll

Bruce Lennoxas Emond Knoll

actress

Milly Alcockas Supergirl

Eve Ridleyas Ruthye

Emily Piggfordas Delilah Knoll

Audrey Brissonas Lumpy Alien

Avye Leventisas Lumpy Alien