11 Spider-Man Movies Ranked, From Sam Raimi’s Trilogy to ‘Brand New Day’

Two villains in Dane DeHaan’s Green Goblin and Jamie Foxx’s Electro don’t make for a more thrilling superhero film. At the time, the consensus among critics was that there were too many characters and too many subplots unfolding, and the panning of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 led to the eventual demise of the Sony-led franchise. The film is only saved by the cast’s performances and the reliable chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, which made Gwen Stacy’s death heartbreaking.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is easily the most forgettable of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) Spider-Man movies, even though it sees its hero leave his home turf of New York. Like any sequel to a great first film, it’s burdened with the task of expanding the world that Spider-Man: Homecoming introduced us to. But Far From Home also crumples under the weight of having to expand on the greater MCU as well. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker doesn’t know if he wants to be the next Tony Stark, and neither does Jon Watts. The film’s saving grace is Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays a fun Mysterio.

In attempting to make Spider-Man 3 darker and funnier in tone than its predecessors, Sam Raimi also made his third and final Spidey film his most absurd. Here, Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker becomes corrupted under the influence of an extraterrestrial symbiote, but his turn to the dark side is signaled by eyeliner, gelled-down hair, and breaking into dance, which is just goofy. Like many of the superhero films that would come after it, its story is overwhelmed by too many villains and subplots. But Spider-Man 3 is memorable, if only for its silliness.

My sixth-grade English teacher’s one critique of The Amazing Spider-Man was that Peter Parker is a dork, so he’s “not supposed to be hot.” Webb’s take on the web-slinger is very much unlike Raimi’s, undoubtedly informed by his directorial debut, 500 Days of Summer, in that the film centers on a cute but angsty nerd’s romance with a smart and sprightly peer. It’s much better appreciated as an action-filled coming-of-age story than a superhero movie that Spider-Man fans will love, especially because Rhys Ifans’ talents are wasted on a Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard that is, as Roger Ebert says, “limited to the dramatic range of Godzilla.”

Nostalgia bait has become really cloying for the MCU, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is a good example. There’s a moment when Zendaya’s MJ is falling, and Garfield’s Spider-Man saves her from the fate that befell (sorry) Gwen in his universe. In Stan Twitter terms, one might say that the nachos were reheated to the point of spoilage. But hey, Watts is playing with the multiverse here, and its convoluted mechanics don’t take away the fun of watching Maguire, Garfield, and Holland together as Spider-Men in one film.

Watts took the best parts of the previous Spider-Man franchises and put them in yet another reintroduction to the superhero, to great results. Homecoming had the vibrancy and fun of Raimi’s Spider-Man, and the heart of Webb’s, without the origin story that would have made the film go stale. Released in 2017, the new franchise was not yet bogged down by the MCU and its insistence on being in everything, making the film truly refreshing for its time.

The first Spider-Man film was an ambitious undertaking, but Raimi managed to pull it off and make something that would come to be a reference point for the movies to follow. Action-packed and reverent to the source material, it was a hit for the fans. Despite the horrid Green Goblin costume, Willem Dafoe delivered an unforgettable performance as the villain, and I’d even go so far as to say he’s as irreplaceable as Heath Ledger’s Joker. Spider-Man’s storytelling was also fresh for its time, its hero inundated with personal and internal conflicts that earlier superhero flicks didn’t give their crime-fighting protagonists.

Speaking of fresh, the recently released Spider-Man: Brand New Day is maybe one of this year’s greatest blockbusters, and a revitalizing comeback for the MCU. Watts admitted that he was “out of gas” after filming No Way Home during the pandemic. And in his wake, Destin Daniel Cretton brings back the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man we all love, with Peter busting small-time crimes around the city. But he’s also grieving and enduring a transformation in his powers — sort of like second puberty — all on his own. The film’s title deviates from the mentions of home, but it definitely sees the superhero in a true homecoming: a return to oneself, to his friends, to his city, and to an exciting MCU.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a great sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which had introduced a new way to animate comic book adaptations when it came out in 2018. Across the Spider-Verse is dizzying at times, even more so when you’re watching it in 4DX (upon the insistence of friends), with an overly complicated plot. The film makes up for it with emotional beats, a gorgeous, eclectic mix of animation styles, fun action sequences, and a soundtrack produced by Metro Boomin.

Into the Spider-Verse was unlike anything anyone had seen of an animated superhero film before. For one, it trades Peter Parker for Shameik Moore’s Miles Morales. But more importantly, there’s a brilliance in putting together a bunch of different animation styles for a movie about the multiverse that’s now so obvious to us but was unheard of when the film was first released. After the box office failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony redeemed itself with this kinetic, quick-paced gift of a film.

Spider-Man may have changed the superhero genre forever, but its sequel stands as the best of the Spider-Man movies. Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus is, like Dafoe’s Green Goblin, a tragic villain that compels and terrifies, especially when put against a Spider-Man whose superhuman abilities begin to falter. Bolstered by an iconic subway fight scene, a heartwarming romance between Peter and Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane, and the hero’s existential crisis subplot, Spider-Man 2 has come to be the movie that all succeeding Spider-Man films would be compared to.