All the Spider-Man movies, ranked from worst to best
With No Way Home now in theaters, let's revisit the highs and lows of Spider-Man's big screen life
Film Lists Spider-Man
This weekend, Spider-Man: No Way Home brings Tom Holland’s Peter Parker back to the big screen. Yet the film doesn’t just function as a continuation of the MCU version of the Spider-Man story. By plucking characters from other dimensions (a.k.a. franchises), it also operates like a kind of ultimate Spider-Man sequel, converging plot elements from three previous big-screen takes on Marvel’s friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. But though they now fit, through some IP-mashing wizard magic, into the same continuity, these various Spider-Man movies are not created equal. There is a spectrum of quality, reaching from the Empire State heights of one installment to the (relative) subterranean Lizard-lair depths of another. Keep reading to see how we’ve ranked the eight live-action Spider-Man movies, plus a single cartoon outlier that could give every Peter Parker out there a run for his superheroic money.
251 Comments
Three lily white men trying to figure out what to do……I am so profoundly grateful that I don’t give a fuck about any of this.
you must be real fun at parties huh buddy
Go eat some fried chicken and watermelon or go to KFC racist black bitchboi
Go eat your watermelon and fried chicken racist black boi
Lol you’re such a bigot. And yet still somehow cry about others being racist. Guess that’s what you ppl do. Get a life.
White nationalist screename checks out.
Why? All you gain by not caring about a source of entertainment is a failure to be entertained. That’s a loss for you, with no upside, other than your ability to brag about not caring, but that just makes you insufferable, which also seems like it would be a net loss for you.
I don’t understand WHY people feel the need to comment like that. There’s a TON of stuff i don’t like on this site (and more and more as things keep changing) but I don’t comment on it. People need to let people enjoy things. Also, yeah moving SM3 as high as they did is just…wrong.
If only we could all be as special and interesting as you.
And Miles Morales.
Yet you come off as caring very much about and not being at all grateful.
*Three lily white men and an Afro-Puerto Rican teenager.
He can’t even sneer straight.
This is such a lily white man thing to say.
Seeing that I’m not a white man, apparently others say it too.
Ah. I thought you were self-hating. Guess you’re just regular hating.
One skin-coloured internet commenter blurting out a non-sequitur…I am so profoundly grateful that I dont give a fuck about your interests.
You did well in earning your reply from me
Not sure how to read this. I’m extraordinarily lucky that deigned to respond? You’re a rando forum sensei who emerges once every thousand years to say something? Lol.
I’m saying “you did well”.GOOOOOOOOOOONG
Three lily white men …And this guy.
If you were so profoundly grateful for not giving a fuck why the fuck did you decide to jump in?Because it gave you an opportunity to present a low-grade racist proclamation (“lily white men”), that’s why.2/10.
I’m surprised you even took a minute away from masturbating in a mirror to comment about it.
Never go full hipster douche
Glad to see Spider-Man 2 was voted the best. The blooper reel is even better.
Roger Ebert gave The Amazing Spider-Man 3.5 stars, and Spider-Man 3 two stars. In this, he was right, and Dowd is wrong.
I get why some feel that Raimi’s style was some inherently beautiful and wonderful thing – but that’s an aesthetic preference. And, whatever your aesthetic preferences, to say that SM3 is better than ASM1 is just plain incorrect, IMO.
It’s not incorrect. I watched both again last week. Spider-Man 3 is messier and clearly more fragmented, but it’s a lot more fun – a lot more – than the competent but dreary ASM.
3 is a glorious fiasco while ASM is a bland, workmanlike rehash of a movie that came out only ten years before. The latter is probably a better movie, but if I were to pick a Spider-Man movie to watch on a whim I’d reach for 3 first.
The latter is probably a better movie, but if I were to pick a Spider-Man movie to watch on a whim I’d reach for 3 first.I don’t particularly like either, but that’s a good description of both movies.
At least 3 retained Raimi’s visual style, like a less gothic, more kinetic Tim Burton. I honestly can’t remember anything about either ASM movie other than being bored.
I mostly remember that movie for trying to make Bing a thing.
Also handsome, charming, extreme sports-loving Peter Parker still gets bullied by the cool kids for…reasons.
We all know what Bing is best for
The ASM movies were exactly what you say, they were boring. They may be among the handful (just one handful) of superhero movies that I’ve only watched once, simply because as soon as they were over I had forgotten everything about them. The first two Thor movies were more memorable, which says a lot, and it still amazes me that they salvaged that series with Ragnarok (which is infinitely re-watchable, IMHO).
I went from not agreeing at the beginning of your comment to totally agreeing at the end.
Spider-Man 3 is a bad film, but it understands Spider-Man in a way that The Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t. The latter, in fact, misses the point of the character by a very wide margin.
Spider-Man 3 is also really funny and engaging in a way that ASM just isn’t. Plus the visuals are just incredibly, particularly in some of its more famous scenes.
And I agree with the article—SM3’s version of Evil Peter was dead on, and very funny.
ASM just has so little worthwhile in it.
This is a good summary. Andrew Garfields Peter Parker was a snotty whiny bitch
Workmanlike is the perfect word- It’s like the Tim Story Fantastic 4’s, you can’t say it’s a bad movie because of the lack of talent or production values or anything; they’re just so bland and forgettable.
The Amazing Spider-Man has some great stuff. Andrew Garfield is lovely, and that scene at the end between Peter and Aunt May is terrific. It’s at least better than its sequel.
Just so we’re clear, other people’s subjective opinions are wrong, but your objective opinion is correct? That’s your pitch?
Yeah, I just don’t see how anyone could watch SM3 and think it wasn’t the worst. Seems like a pretty easy call. Not just the dancing scene, but Harry Osborne’s arc is so hackneyed, the villains are awful… it just plain sucks.
Spider-Man 2 is better but the Raimi original is probably my nostalgic favourite. I was 15 in 2002 and had got back into comics about 18 months earlier. Seeing Spider-Man on the big screen and done well was such an exciting thing. Love the whole cast, especially Dafoe.The thing I’ve always taken from Maguire’s take on Peter Parker was that it was close to the very early Lee/Ditko version rather than the more wisecracking later versions of the character.I got to see No Way Home in cinemas yesterday and it was, by far, the best cinema experience I’ve had since probably Endgame in April 2019. Not only was it the most packed cinema I’ve been in for a long time but the crowd was so into the movie and there was so much cheering, laughter and delight at the big moments. It was amazing.
Fully agree with all of this. There are few things that would bring me to the theater this winter, but the collective fun of seeing NWH with a crowd was unreal. Cathartic beyond just seeing a movie.
the collective fun of seeing NWH with a crowd was unreal.I’m beyond disappointed with the theater group I saw it with. Hardly anyone cheered or reacted to what was happening on screen, despite the fact that I saw the movie in a full theater opening weekend. It felt like my immediate friends, and two guys behind us were the only ones enjoying it.It was nothing like my fantastic Endgame experience.
There’s a moment (an i know you know which one) where the audience literally gasped. I havent heard that in a LONG time. It was nice.
2002 is my favorite one too. It felt like a comic book movie come to life. The plot felt like a comic book, like a soap opera with action, just one thing after another. It’s about the characters and their relationships. It felt open ended and messy, like life itself. Spider-Man 2, on the other hand, with it’s plot about Doc Ock and his supervillain quest for ‘tritium’ to power his supervillain machine, felt much more like a hollywood movie with spider-man in it.
I was thinking recently about what I would consider the defining shot of a Spider-Man movie, and I’d say it’s in the original Spider-Man where Peter is in the alley, and the camera follows him as he climbs a wall to the rooftop and takes off on his web after a speeding car. That’s the character in one shot, and I give that movie a lot of credit for it. The irony of course is that the tone of that scene is downbeat as he, and the CGI (which looked bad in 2002) has aged… charmingly? It’s a mixed bag.
I like in that scene that he STILL hesitates before taking that first swing. We already saw him practicing, so a lot of movies would have just made him an expert at that point. Uncle Ben was just murdered, so you could have him just chasing on instinct. But no, he still hestitates to do that first big swing because it’s scary and a crazy thing to do. Made it feel that much more real.
The first Raimi SM was what got me back into comics after at least a decade. Maybe it is still too soon, and maybe I’m being -that guy- that’s gonna bring it all down, but I still remember watching the first trailers for SM1 and the scene at the top of the WTC is still stuck in my head 20+ years later. I know they scrubbed it from the movie before it was released post 9/11, but I feel that particular scene is overdue for reinsertion in the film. I worked in the city for a couple years (and still live in upstate NY…a different world for sure) but I never experienced positive pride in any place other than NYC. I think it’s time to give Spidey and the city the WTC back.
I know it wasn’t intended this way, but “best cinema experience since 2019” really see like damnation by faint praise.
I am generally in favour of letting people enjoy things, but seeing the guy in front of me freak the fuck out and point at the screen over a 60 second cameo gave me some second hand embarrasment.
In my opinion Into The Spider-verse is the best by far, and quite possibly the best superhero movie ever made. Great story and visually stunning, but above all just a joyous love letter for the source material that really gets at a spirit that none of the live action ones can touch.
Hm. I still vouch for The Incredibles as best superhero movie ever, but the case can certainly be made for Spider-verse. And that says something obvious about how animation is really the better medium for superhero stores than live-action. See also: Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League series.
Thou forgetst The Rocketeer.
Mmmmm, 90s Jennifer Connelly.
*Homer Simpson gargling noise* And yes she’s most of what I remember about that movie, why do you ask?
80s Connelly, 90s Connelly, 00s Connelly, 10s Connelly, 20s Connelly…. that woman just gets better by the decade.
Well, 80s Connelly was a bit too young to lust over (at least Labyrinth Connelly, anyway).
The Rocka-Who??
the incredibles is tiresomely busy. but the same goes for most of that director’s work. i zone out rewatching it.
I think what puts Spider-verse over the top for me is just how invested in the visual potential of animation it is. All the stuff with Kirby dots, framerate fiddling, mixing 3d and cell shading with purely 2d-graphics, making depth with vector graphics rather than simulating focus depth, are all extremely interesting and pay off in subtle (and sometimes obvious) ways.
So, I can accept there are better ‘superhero movies’ but it’s the best ‘comic-book movie’ so far.
You’re right, Spider-verse’s animation pops in a way that you don’t see typically in Pixar’s house style. In fact, Pixar’s style really doesn’t change a whole lot from film to film other than things getting more detailed, but they don’t really play around with it as much as they could, at least not until Incredibles 2’s Screen Slaver fight, which damn near gave me seizure.
The “What’s up Danger” scene is a thing of pure, unadulterated beauty.
No matter how many times I see that scene it gives me chills every single time
You could hear literal gasps in the theater during that scene. Chills!
Nope, the dark knight
It’s not even close, as much as I hold Spider-Man 2 dear (I still think I’ll like it better than Holland’s latest), Spider-Verse is exceptional on like 20 different levels.
You have to give it props for juggling all the narrative elements so deftly, and with mesmerizing art to boot.
This. 100%.Spider-verse deserved picture of the year. It was impeccable. From artistic to technical standpoints, every decision made on that movie was well and beyond the decisions made by other filmmakers. The Shape of Water doesn’t even come close.“It’s animation” and “It’s meant for a younger audience” are for-some-reason-negative critiques that need to be trashed.
lol…that movie sucked.
I really really liked Spiderverse, but I do struggle a bit to see why people think it’s a high watermark for super hero movies. I think your note about it being a “love letter” was precisely the reason that it didn’t stick for me in maybe the same way that it did for others – it just felt like it was at the mercy of every other Spiderman story ever made, rather than its own thing. And I know how silly that sounds given that it’s probably visually and tonally the most distinct one on this list – but I guess I just have a hard time getting movies as referential as that one into the highest tier of movies for me. I liked it well enough, but I saw it twice and both times I just thought “well, that was fun and smart,” and left it at that. Spiderman 2 just did it for me in a way that Spiderverse didn’t.
Hot take: Spiderverse isn’t even the best animated superhero ever made or the best Spider-Man movie.
Everybody loves Spider-Man 2; it’s routinely in the discussion of all-time great superhero movies, and I hate it. I thought it was disappointing when I saw it theatrically, and I’ve since re-watched it after a box office champs post here — it still stinks! There are things it does well: it’s really sincere about the nature of heroism and sacrifice and the toll that takes on someone (and their loved ones: the final shot holding on Mary Jane’s conflicted face is great)… when it’s not leaning into excruciating too-long comedy bits. And it’s lowkey ugly, with sets that look like something out of a mid-budget WB show.I want to hear the Danny Elfman score over the opening credits and just fucking love this movie, but it has never clicked for me.
I didn’t hate it, but there was a really weird scene where the landlord’s daughter gave Peter some cake. So any time that movie is brought up, all I can think about is what’s the deal with the cake.
They kind of halfheartedly try to introduce another love interest? I guess? Most of what I remember is I had a massive crush on the actress.
I don’t know if you ever watched The Magicians (synopsis: Harry Potter but they do drugs and fuck) but she has a recurring role as the head Librarian.
You had a crush on the gender swapped DJ Qualls?
To be fair, features that look ridiculous on a grown man often look better on a woman. But yeah, I thought she was cute, and I have thing for braids. [shrugs] She’s more interesting looking than Kirsten Dunst anyway.
Like what you like, no one owes it to anyone else to modify their aesthetic preferences.The comment about ‘gender-swapped DJ Qualls’ made me curious, and I looked up the cast of Spider-Man 2. The actress’ name is Mageina Tovah – I started looking through the pic on her IMDB page and it didn’t take long to find one of Lauren Lapkus on Conan, in a split screen with pics of herself, Tovah, Chelsea Peretti, Kristen Schaal…and DJ Qualls. (It was in a tweet Lapkus had sent out entitled ‘Just a few pics of me’)
🤣🤣🤣🤣👍
The chocolate cake scene is the key to the whole damn movie, it’s a miracle that it even exists, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate it is dead to me. Straight up Raimi’s masterpiece.
The best part of the “chocolate cake” scene is that it kicked off an incredibly long and surprisingly intense message board debate (I believe it was on imdb) as to whether yellow cake with chocolate frosting was or was not “chocolate cake”.
Was going to mention this, and yes it was on IMDB, it lasted for years. Sadly doesn’t look like it’s been preserved on MovieChat or Film Boards
The fact that it was just yellow cake with chocolate icing is a beautifully heartbreaking detail
I think it’s just supposed to be a simple act of kindness amidst all the pressure being piled on Peter.
You know the deal with the cake. Come on.
It’s not weird at all, it’s extremely charming.
YES WHAT WAS THAT SCENE
At this point, Spider-Man 2 is benefitting from the 90s-kid nostalgia bubble that Space Jam – a truly horrible mess of IP exploitation – has enjoyed. I always felt that Tobey Maguire was the weak link in every one of the Raimi movies, and while I love Molina’s Doc Ock I thought the movie was more like someone doing a Raimi impression rather than the legitimate sauce.No way on this earth is it better than Spider-Verse, though, and I’d even say it falls behind Homecoming on the list to boot.
No way on this earth is it better than Spider-Verse, though, and I’d even say it falls behind Homecoming on the list to boot.Yeah, Spider-Verse is incredible, and I do think Homecoming is better as well (too much Tony Stark for my taste, but it gets a Keaton bump). It’s like, we have two different examples of great post-Raimi Spider-Man movies; we can let go of SM2.
Not really. It’s not like Space Jam, which was rightly panned upon release and it was only once the generation of kids who loved it turned adults did it undergo a reevaluation. Spider-Man 2 has been consistently ranked as one of the best superhero films since its release and up to the present.
Thank you! I saw spider man 2 in the theater and was completely at sea as to why everyone thought it was so good. It’s… fine? I actually re-watched with my kids about a month ago, and it hasn’t aged well. It’s a solid 5/10.Spider-Verse, however, is a borderline masterpiece. Nothing else on this list comes close.
This. The best way to make me disregard any of your other opinions is to tell me you think SM2 was the best of the MacGuire films, much less the best of the Spider-Man movies. It was a mess, Molina chewed the scenery painfully, and the plot resolution was the stupidest plan in the history of bad superhero film science. You shouldn’t have “Into the Spiderverse” in your mouth in the same sentence as SM2, much less below it in a list like this.
I watched it a few years ago and thought it was *fine*, but the two times I saw it in the 2000s I didn’t like it at all, when I got home from seeing it at the cinema I looked up the reviews and had a real “am I even on the same planet?” feeling when I read all the raves.And now I’m thinking how quaint it was that I went to see the big film of the moment without knowing the precise percentage of reviewers who had given it a good review.
I didn’t like it either. When Doc Ock said he was going to redo his experiment with better shielding, then got even more tritium, I was like…no thanks. It ruined the whole movie for me.
I question your taste level.
I maintain that the tonal shifts are wild and it hasn’t aged well, but I accept your judgment with grace. In the grand ranking of Spider-Man movies, I just don’t see it for SM2 over Spider-Verse. I’d put Homecoming ahead of SM2 as well. Maybe I’m just too gay and depressed, but X2 has always been my favourite comic book movie of that era.
I do not agree with your opinion, but I’ll still take the opportunity to post this:
I think alot of people were blown away by the train sequence in Spiderman 2, but I’m like you I was not impressed with the movie, the acting from the main trio was worse, Aunt May turned into a characture, and the movie locations just look bland. I don’t think Amazing Spiderman 2 is a great movie, but it’s by far the best use of NYC in any of the Spiderman movies.
I’ve only seen it once all the way through in the theater when it came out originally. I enjoyed it well enough, but it didn’t quite make as strong as an impression as it seems to have with most other people. Maybe it might resonate stronger if I rewatch it now all these years later.Into the SpiderVerse, on the other hand, really worked for me. When I first saw the trailers for it, I was skeptical, mainly because the animation looks really weird and stuttery in isolation. However, all doubts were allayed when I actually saw it and I’ve rewatched it multiple times since. Sure, it is a bit overstuffed with other Spider-People and assorted hangers-on, but that feels like that might be part of the point. Here he is, new to the Spider-Person game, handed down a legacy by a Spider-Veteran (the “I’m so tired” bit was a rapturous gift to Gif memedom), overwhelmed by the legacy, mentored by a schlubby off-his-game elder SpiderMan, and beset by other Spider-People who seem far more ready for this than he will ever be (and, of course, his favorite uncle turns out to be a baddie). It makes the moment when he seizes control of his destiny, staking his claim as a real hero finally, all the more cathartic.
I’m with you man. Never understood the love. Spider-Man 1 also is a far better film than 2. For me what really takes me out of all of it is the subway scene where the crowd carries Peter (maskless) as though he’s their Messiah.I nearly walked out of the theater the first time I saw that. Just completely takes me out of the entire movie and IMO eye-rolling lame.
The part where one of the passengers sees Peter’s face and says something like “He’s just a kid” – sure, that works! Carrying the body of Spider-Jesus in reverent silence? Nope.
Spider-Man 2 could have broken the pattern of introducing a villain and killing them off by the end, but no. Doc Oc died at the end right along with my appreciation for that trilogy.Then the fact that all of the “kids” were older than the American Pie cast.
Toby sucked as Spider-Man. He was alright as Peter Parker, but he missed every mark as the Webhead. The quips and one-liners were few and far between, and they all felt so forced it was painful.
People really loved Spider-Man 2 and X2 when they came out, and justifiably so. But… there have been WAY better superhero movies since, but it seems like people’s opinions of these movies as list-toppers is set in stone. Into the Spider-verse is hands-down the best of the bunch, and it’s not really close.
Surprisingly, I mostly agree with this list. I still would’ve put SM3 higher than any of the MCU ones, just on principle, because I’m a stubborn bitch. But I’m always glad when someone else digs the street dancing as much as I do. I think it’s so funny. And so entertaining.It’s almost like Raimi was trying to break out of the misery of having to make a compromised version of his movie by just turning that part into a perfectly silly little romp. It’s an inspired bit. I love it.
I thought the dancing sort of works since it’s like a manifestation of all his worst qualities still only gets Maguire’s Parker to self-satisfied borderline-redpiller dork, but ultimately he’s so good that he’s harmless and pretty much no one falls for it.
Yeah of course, it also makes sense on that level. That is just dorky Peter Parker’s version of being a bad bitch.But I’m also saying that this is definitely classic Sam Raimi type humor, and it’s probably very intentional, all of it.
Between that and The Matrix Reloaded nerds really had it in for dancing in the 2000s.
But but at least SM3 was fun at times. Reloaded is a joyless slog. Also those two sequels have not aged well.
I watched them last year, expecting to love them for being the kind of unbridled originality you don’t see at that kind of budget any more, but I pretty much felt the same way about them as I did in 2003, and that includes feeling unqualified to give an opinion on Revolutions, which I hadn’t seen before and felt like I still hadn’t after I did.
Yeah, I can see the originality and ambition in them, and I really wanted to love them but just found them very dull for the most part. The Wachowskis did a much better job on Speed Racer which is just a joy to watch, though audiences didn’t agree. Happily there’s been a bit of a reappraisal recently.
Yeah, I’ve only watched Speed Racer once, but I liked it a lot. There’s always been a decent section of people who defended it, but that does seem to have grown over time. Commercially I think it was just 10 years or so too late for a film based on that property.
It could be, its hard to tell why movies fail at the box office.
It was an old fashioned storyline with a very modern coat of paint based on a property that millenials had only vague memories of.
I’d put Homecoming ahead of Spider-Man 1—if nothing else we need to recognize that Holland is immensely more suited for the role than the already-pushing-30-at-the-time Maguire—but it’s hard to argue with Spider-Verse and Spider-Man 2 as the top two. Now I’d just like a spin-off sitcom about the misadventures of Jake Johnson’s Sadsack Spider-Man.
Imagine Michael Keaton threatening Tobey Maguire in a car-ride to the prom. You’d expect Tobey’s Peter to say, “You’ll be hearing from my attorney, sir!”
Tom Holland is a better Spider-Man, for sure, but everything else about Spider-Man 2002 is better than Homecoming. No Way Home is the first MCU Spider-Man movie that actually feels like a Spider-Man movie.
I would’ve put No-Way-Home much higher. Probably number 3. Based on pure entertainment purposes, it was a highlight for me. I’m not sure whether I would consider 2 or spider-verse better, but they’d both be in the top 2.
I’m glad that Dowd is vouching for Dark Peter, but I won’t stand for his Macy Gray slander.
Words cannot express how delighted I am to see amazing spider-man ranked dead last. For me that’s the only one I hate, for a simple reason, because it’s boring mediocrity. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just crushingly dull to rewatch. There are worse movies, but something like amazing spider-man 2 has flashes of gleeful insanity (and a surprisingly great score), spider-man 3 feels like Riami was going insane with frustration, which makes the whole film kind of captivating. Amazing Spider-man feels like it was built in the most generic lab in the world.
The rest of the list I agree with completely as well. Nothing more needs to be said about spider-man 2 other than that every time I rewatch it (as recently as two days ago) it stands out as still a masterfully made movie that nails so many tones so perfectly. Spider-verse is the only one that can touch it.
(No way home was surprisingly well done as well. Remarkable that it easily could have been a clusterfuck and yet works so coherently and actually balances the absurdly massive cast)
The Amazing Spider-Man also has terrible action, lol.
The big problem for me with ASM is not just that it’s boring, but it’s a boring version of a film we’ve already seen. It repeats so many beats of the original Raimi film, but in lesser ways. You have Uncle Ben dying again, but in a stupider way. You have a clunkier “with great power comes great responsibility” line. You have a less interesting scientist driven mad by his own experiment. You have a people-of-New-York-help-Spider-Man scene that really feels like it only exists to ape the one from the original movie. You even have a character whose dying action is to ask the hero to consider their child’s wellbeing, with the difference being that Garfield’s Peter ends the film saying, “Nah, fuck that.”
Thank you for your extremely valuable input.
I’ve never liked the Raimi movies as much as most but just did a rewatch a few days ago of the trilogy – I found myself really enjoying the first one, but I still don’t fully get the hype on the 2nd. It has a couple of great scenes (the train scene especially) and normally I like movies that present a time a little while into a hero’s career better than origin stories but in this case I don’t know, the first one just felt a little spritelier, had a bit more pep. I’d probably say Spider-Verse at one, then maybe the first Raimi, then the Holland trilogy (in order they were released), Spider-Man 2, first Amazing, Spider-Man 3 (which actually is pretty good in the parts that have nothing to do with the symbiote), Amazing 2, which is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
Spider-Man 3 has its moments, but it’s an overstuffed mess that wastes Venom, introduces Emo Parker and has that ridiculous amnesia subplot with the magical all-knowing butler.I rank these movies like this:- The first three have the best director. Raimi’s style is all over those films.- Andrew Garfield is the better actor out of that trio.- Holland is the best Peter Parker because he sells him as an innocent, naive kid. Garfield was way too cool to play a geeky high schooler and Maguire was already too old for the role in the second one.- Spider-Verse is the best movie of them all. Just a loving, fun tribute to the wall-crawler’s entire legacy.
Even after all this time, I can’t get over that stupid fucking Butler scene. This dude is somehow an expert at cleaning wounds to the point that he can identify that it was the Goblin Glider (which he also knows about, apparently) that caused this one. And even then, that doesn’t prove that Norman killed himself with it; for all the butler knows, Spider-Man grabbed the thing with a web and hurled it at Norman with spider-strength.
Much as I originally liked 1 & 2, and thought Maguire was good, for me those just don’t hold up. Yeah, there were, very few wisecracks; at one time he calls the Green Goblin “Gobby” during a fight and it’s jarring since it wasn’t a thing we’d gotten from him before. Also I really really hated the organic web thing. Aside from the weirdness of it, it gave short shrift to Peter Parker’s scientific genius. The Garfield ones were … okay. Tom Holland (and the scripts) work the best for me. But obviously they didn’t happen in a vacuum – it took some trial and error over a decade or so to get the right actor and the right attitude. Of course, Spider-verse is damn near perfect.
The Garfield ones were … okay.The first one was. The second one was…terrible.
I want to love Raimi’s 1st one for all of its successes (as mentioned here, Dafoe is wonderful. And I love Tobey’s dorkiness), but the fact that most of its dialogue is gibberish and some of the scenes look like they’re directed by Kevin Smith makes it more of a nostalgic love than an actual respect.“I said… uh… Spider-Man, I said uh… The great thing about MJ is… when you look in her eyes and she’s looking back in yours… everything… feels… not quite normal. Because you feel stronger and weaker at the same time. You feel excited and at the same time, terrified. The truth is… you don’t know what you feel except you know what kind of man you want to be. It’s as if you’ve reached the unreachable and you weren’t ready for it.”
What the holy hell is that?
2 got it right and it deserves the respect it gets. It’s kind of the same movie, and the plot mechanics required to have some will they / won’t they tension with MJ kind of turn her into a sociopath, but the human moments (and the words coming out of their mouths) and the action scenes are so much, much better. I’ve always assumed that was the Michael Chabon influence.
All of the MCU movies have just been gold. We gotta let go of some of our preconceptions of what a Spider-Man movie should be (Uncle Ben! Mary Jane! An Aunt May we don’t want to bang!) and ride the convoluted MCU kinetic plot mechanics into an awesome Spider-Man, real storytelling beats and dialogue (compare Aunt May convincing Peter to help Norman or the final conversation with MJ in NWH with the gibberish I posted above), and a spine that demonstrates a consistent morality and clear idea of what each movie is about . Even when Marvel doesn’t always make the choices we’d make, they know how to tell a real, human story underneath all of the spectacle, and they know the difference between trademarks and iconography.
My defense of the organic web-shooters is that Raimi, understanding that the core of the character is that he’s a working-class kid from Queens, raised by his elderly aunt, has no material access to any of the resources required to make a) stronger-than-steel, mass-produced web fluid and b) the mechanism to propel webs long distances. You can’t just jerry-rig that stuff in the garage. Making the webs part if his mutation just made a lot more sense.All that being said, I totally respect your fidelity to the comics.
The idiot plot of No Way Home puts it dead last for me, specifically that Tony Stark would bequeath his glasses and WMDs to Peter (not Banner, or any other responsible or knowledgeable people) without any instructions, training, oversight — is beyond stupid. Plus they play it for laughs, which ok, Marvel, ha ha, gotta have them jokes, sure, but c’mon.The best scene in any of the movies is Peter confessing his role in Uncle Ben’s death to Aunt May in 2. She doesn’t get angry but she doesn’t forgive him right away either. Instead she just walks away silently to process the information. How often, in any movie, not just a super hero one, do we get a scene like that? It’s a gift.
You mean Far From Home? (Yeah the names are kinda confusing, no worries)
Do you mean Far From Home?
I did indeed mean Far From Home. Apologies and thanks.
Characters behaving stupidly isn’t the same thing as the plot being stupid.Tony Stark was always impulsive and reckless. He built a murder robot that destroyed a country, he told a terrorist his home address, he sold out his friends to the government. Him giving Peter the glasses without taking the consequences into account is consistent and in-character.
I hear you and that did occur to me before I posted, but I still think it’s a bridge too far. In fact you could argue that Tony later overcompensated for his recklessness post-Ultron. Ultimately it just comes down to how careless we think he would be in this situation, and for me it doesn’t work and instead feels like the writers were trying to keep Spidey tethered to the Avengers for cross-branding purposes.
No, those other behaviors are specific to his personality, that doesn’t mean he’s dumb all the time.
And giving Peter the glasses was also “specific to his personality”, particularly because it’s not like he was planning to die so soon.
“Him giving Peter the glasses without taking the consequences into account is consistent and in-character.”Is it though? Just because he displayed a degree of recklessness before doesn’t mean that any and all reckless behavior would be in keeping with his character. Giving a WMD to a teenager is a pretty unbelievable thing to do, even for someone like Tony Stark. Granted, I haven’t seen Far From Home in awhile (and even then I was half-heartedly paying attention), but do they explain how/why Stark gave the glasses/weapons to Peter? Stark dies shortly after Peter Park gets snapped back into existence at the end of Endgame, and Peter was gone like 4-5 years (I believe). Apparently Infinity War takes place about 2 years after Civil War (when Stark meets Peter Parker) too. So you’re telling me Tony Stark gives this all to a teenager he’s known for about two years? And two years is being generous, since he would have had to have decided to bequeath it to Peter at some point before Infinity War (when he’s still telling him to be a “friendly neighborhood Spider-man”) since we know he didn’t do it after Peter came back. And he never changes the plans between when Peter disappears and when he comes back? Even after having a kid? It doesn’t make any sense.
“So you’re telling me Tony Stark gives this all to a teenager he’s known for about two years?”Did you not watch the scene in Endgame where he looks at Peter’s photo and it’s implied the main reason why Tony even decided to go along with the time travel plan and jeopardize the happy family life he achieved was because he couldn’t let go of Peter and hoped to bring him back? He looked after Peter like a son, despite the relatively short time they had together. Given that getting him back was his primary motivation, and that he knew death was a risk, yeah, I think it makes sense he left those glasses to Peter in his will before embarking in the time travel adventure. Did you forget that he left Peter’s suit with a killing mode even when Peter was far less experienced?
That tech created by Mysterio was so ridiculous it took me out of the story completely. I know it’s a super-hero movie and I need to suspend my disbelief but JFC that was stupid.
I’m not the biggest MCU fan and I guess I’m kind of out of touch with what audiences like these days, but I really don’t get why Peter Parker successfully distracting a bus full of teens and adults by saying he saw a mountain goat so he can jump through a gap in the bus to web down a drone that he inadvertently sent to kill a teen because he took a photo of him when his trousers accidentally fell to his ankles when he was with a woman didn’t become an infamous Bat Credit Card/Nuke the Fridge-type scene.
Punctuation is your friend.
But that’s what the scene is!
I always felt that even in the following scene where May forgives Peter (“It’s all water under the bridge”), things still aren’t the way they were, and never will be. In a fundamental way, it feels like May sees Peter as a different man than before. It ties in nicely with the fact that she’s moving out of the house he grew up in with her and Ben; that’s the past now, and whether they want to or not, May and Peter have to move on from it.
Far From Home is bad and is easily the worst of the Holland movies, but the Garfield movies (no fault of the actor, of course) are in a very special category of terrible.
Spider-Verse is my #1, followed closely by the first Raimi film. After that, it’s the two MCU films (haven’t seen No Way Home yet, so not counting it), then Amazing 1, with the other three films jumbled together at the bottom.
Also, hot take: The Amazing films had the best Spidey suits. Both of them.
Gotta disagree broseph. That ASM spidey rubber suit looked like wide open ass (white soles on the feet? Wtf). While the ASM2 suit was just your basic old, no frills classic suit. Even the OG raimi suits at least had that cool embossed webbing.
Spider-Man 2… best movie; no doubt. (Though if Spider-Verse was tied with it for best that wouldn’t bother me one bit).
But best trailer too?! Looks LIKE it cause DANG if that trailer doesn’t make me want to see SM2 (event though I’ve already seen it) 😀
It’s an underappreciated miracle that Homecoming — a film with something like 67 credited screenwriters and an equally long list of corporate sponsors, product placements and continuity-maintaining requirements for both the MCU and Sony’s off-brand Venom-verse pictures managed to be, by and large, really quite good. I think a lot of it just boils down to realizing they’d been given a gift in Michael Keaton and not second-guessing the choice to under-play Adrian Toomes. There had to be a serious temptation to go the full DeFoe there, but instead he’s a coiled ball of relatable motivations and upwardly-mobile working class social graces around a core of an explosive temper: probably the best villain the MCU ever produced.
I really, really like that he doesn’t die at the end – he has a showdown with Spider-Man, and Spider-Man carries him away from it. None of the other movies captured the idea that Spider-Man deliberately pulls his punches.
Also… his motivations are consistent! He tries to break off the fight midway because he sees the thing he wants to steal and that’s more important to him than (muah hah hah hah) beating Spider-Man.
Grounding Toomes in a very real setting helped sell him as the villain so much. When you see him as the leader of a gang of crooks, he’s menacing; when you see him as Liz’s suburban dad, he’s terrifying.
Spider-man 2 remains my favorite, and one of my all-time favorites in the genre. I think one of the things I love most about it is that while Doc Ock is ostensibly the villain, he’s not the source of the central conflict. In a way, Peter Parker is kind of his own antagonist (or perhaps rather to say, Spider-man is Peter Parker’s antagonist).
***SPOILERS (because not really sure how you could avoid them on a piece like this***I agree with and/or understand a lot of the other comments I’ve seen here. But I think what surprised me most is just how low No Way Home landed. Maybe that’s just because I’m looking at this with different criteria.For me, NWH is a lot like Endgame in the sense that, if you haven’t seen the prior films, it’s a good film, but not an exceptional one (which is probably why it comes in at #6). I think there’s still a lot to like; a visually entertaining film (despite a tad too much CGI), distinct and interesting characters, and a balance of humor and pathos where one doesn’t distract from the other. It does feel a tad long, there are a lot of mac-guffins and comic-book logic (but it is a comic book film), and there’s the aforementioned reliance on having seen the prior films.But. Having seen the prior films (I was in HS when the Raimi films came out; remember that Macy Gray was in the first one?), NWH shoots up to #2 for me, tied with Raimi’s second and just behind Spiderverse. The emotional payoffs for characters from the Webb and Raimi films, alongside Holland’s performance and the arc of his Peter, absolutely shines. They didn’t just pull in Defoe and Molina’s villains to have them be one-dimensional obstacles; they’re still struggling with their demons chewing the scenery. Garfield’s Parker is still wracked by the loss of his Gwen, but obtains some degree of redemption when saving MJ. Maguire’s Peter is the veteran, handing out sage-life advice and given the chance to save his original nemesis. It just all worked for me, without feeling like it was cheap pandering.
What with the Marvel-fuelled rise of the “superhero movie” over the last 2 decades, culminating with the global phenomenon of the infinity war finale……Im pleasantly surprised to see early 2000’s movies still holding top spots amongst even die-hard fans, despite sense-busting concentrations of faboulously modern special effects and ever more spectacular action sequences.
Perfect list. Exactly right!
AMS was wrong to retell the origin story, but there’s no way it’s worse than AMS2. Haven’t seen the most recent one, but the first two Tom Holland ones should be ahead of the first Raimi Spiderman, even if it’s the more important film.
Having seen No Way Home, which I liked a lot, I can now imagine a Bond movie where they bring back every living actor who ever played James Bond (and CGI the dead ones) and it being the worst movie ever made.
Tom Holland having better chemistry with Zendaya than whats-her-face is reason enough why the sequels are better, and Homecoming is the weakest of his three, but I’ll dive into my bigger problems…
I can understand the desire to not want another origin story, but with the Tom Holland movies, its basically Uncle Ben erasure. That’s no bueno. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. There still needs to be a driving force behind why he puts on the mask, and a moral compass that guides the type of hero he wants to be. None of this is established in Homecoming, which presents Peter as doing what he’s doing because its “fun” and he wants to be a social media star, and to impress people. What I know about this Spider-Man’s heart is mostly based on the knowledge I’m bringing to it, rather than what the movie shows. This was the start of a set of films that knew it wasn’t going to need to do any work.
(***Spoilers for No Way Home*** When the other Spider-Men are talking about their experiences and the pain of loss, it snaps into focus how little Tom Holland’s Peter has suffered by comparison. Yes, he got snapped away, but he comes back and its turned into a joke. Meanwhile, Tobey and Andrew have been through shit. Until he finally lost May, Holland’s run has been more about fixing bumbling inconveniences. ***End Spoilers***)
Homecoming is #NotMySpider-Man. The obsession with Tony Stark, the gizmo suit with talking A.I, a young Aunt May that doesn’t need help with the bills, and a Peter that isn’t really down on his luck laid the foundation for a rather weak trilogy to build from, imo. I don’t know how they can make a movie where Peter’s social life isn’t affected by his secret identity, but somehow, time and again Homecoming is devoid of consequences, which misses the whole point about what makes this hero compelling in the first place. Both its sequels get a little better at this, making the stakes more meaningful than Homecoming, but they all still operate as ads for the MCU at large, so at least for me, I still feel like Tom Holland hasn’t actually had his own solo Spider-Man movie yet. What I’m saying is I think Homecoming should be lower. But I also kind of hate it, so of course I think that.
Totally agree. Holland’s Parker is just Iron Man jr. and I hate it. I really hate his gaudy sci-fi magic suits. He has no real stakes either. I think his Parker is too naive and childlike, and he needs a surrogate father figure in every movie (Tony, Nick, Doc Strange). Its weird, but to me Garfield’s Parker was the most accurate take on the character, despite the fact that his movies sucked.
I like Homecoming as a Spider-Man movie that’s genuinely funny (Hannibal Buress’s offhand comment about Captain America being a war criminal, but they’re required to watch the video is the last MCU crossover bit that I enjoyed). But casting Marisa Tomei as Aunt May and then making Peter’s primary attachment figure Iron Man, a lesser character played by a lesser actor? That’s some bullshit.
lolwhat But casting Marisa Tomei as Aunt May and then making Peter’s primary attachment figure Iron Man, a lesser character played by a lesser actor?
It definitely crosses the line for me of having so much (IMO weak) tension-depleting humor that it was hard for me to get invested in the story. It improves in the last act, but not enough for me to rate the film highly as a whole.
“Homecoming is #NotMySpider-Man” go touch grass
Absolutely. Homecoming is probably the least “Spider-Man” of any of the Spider-Man movies, but feels more like an Avengers side-story.
I’m seeing more of this opinion lately – I wonder how much it’s rooted in love of the source material? Because as someone who’s not really into comics at all, much less Spider-Man comics, I find Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies to be my favorite of the Peter Parker movies by a long shot. They’re fun, grounded high school movies with superheroics, and I love them for it.
I disagree with your hatred of Homecoming, but see your point. Now here is mine.The Amazing Spider-Man’s problem is that it tried to be tonally darker, edgier and more realistic than the Raimi films that came before because that was the trend in superhero movies at the time. However, Spider-Man is not a character that feels right acting dark and edgy. (In fact, after re-watching Civil War, I would argue that Holland and Rudd are the best part this dismal dark, edgy and realistic affair because they were used lighten things up. They got to stay true to character.)When you are not dealing with the right character (i.e.-Batman), dark, edgy and realistic usually comes across as unauthentic and boring. Andrew Garfield seems like a good guy, but his casting as an angry, cool Peter kind of misses the point…even if it is in some ways truer to how Peter Parker was depicted in the original comics. However, comics needed to have on-going drama to keep reader’s interested in the serial-style storytelling. I would argue that Holland’s Peter Parker is a lot truer to the spirit of what Lee and Ditko intended.Sure Garfield got his Uncle Ben moment, but he was also stuck with a silly sub-plot about trying to solve the murder of his parents while engaging in a way too cutsy relationship with Emma Stone. Neither feel very Peter Parker.In contrast, the MCU realized that Peter should look young and he should not seem like the coolest guy in the room. He may not had been the Spider-Man who struggled the most with the death of a loved one (until recently), but he is the Spider-Man that made the most mistakes. This was an aspect of the character that Raimi and Webb never really explored.The MCU have actually used the last three movies to tell a Spider-Man origin story that he thought they initially excluded. If Holland continues as Spider-Man (and he will), then he will more forward making less mistakes and will start to assert himself as an equal (perhaps even a mentor) instead of an apprentice. They have left the character in a good place to start a new trilogy.
I hear you, and I agree with virtually everything you said. The Amazing Spider-Man was a tonal blunder from the jump (and in fact, I take up for TASM 2 as the better of the two, thanks to being a brighter movie, and easing up on Garfield’s jerkishness). But I still feel Homecoming over-corrects by going too far in the other direction; So light, that it’s almost too breezy a film to have the weight I kind of like my Spider-Man stories to have.
On the plus side, Michael Keaton is worth the watch, and Tom Holland has been an improvement. A joy in the role, and does indeed nail the boyish version Peter prone to make mistakes.
All of these franchises had flaws. Raimi’s ends with a
lackluster 3rd film. Webb got the tone wrong and often failed
to entertain. And Watts never got to give Peter a proper origin and
worked in a universe where the classic characters in the Spider-Man universe all got reinvented.I like how No Way Home acknowledges these flaws and even course
corrects a few. Maguire gets to tell us how things went with Mary Jane. Garfield, who clearly made the most with the opportunity, gets to have his edgy, slightly broken Spider-Man serve a purpose. And Holland needed to deal with a death unrelated to Tony
Stark. He can also now meet some classic characters that have never been properly brought to the screen before.I liked Homecoming partially because it was “breezy”. It did not
try too hard to bring Spider-Man back to the screen. Watts just made a fun film
that new fans like my son, who is now a teen, really enjoyed. Instead of
outdoing Raimi, they focussed on selling Spider-Man to a new
generation. And Keaton definately holds up his end, making Vulture one of the best comic book film villains.Were I think the MCU Spider-Man fails is in Far From Home. Spider-Man
should not be taken out of New York! Plus, some of the comedy does not work as
well here, like when Peter accidentally calls for a drone strike. I feel this is were your too“breezy” argument works best. But Gyllenhaal was a pleasant surprise. Still, it is the real weak link in the MCU Spider-Man trilogy.
While I agree with the complaints, I did like Homecoming as a movie, if not as a “Spider-Man” origin story. It worked better as that, even if I truly did not love what it did to Peter as a character, and how it positioned him into the universe, I had more issues with Far From Home on those grounds; it felt more egregious in its pursuit of making Peter another Iron Man.Yet… I feel No Way Home retcons those issues in the most poignant way possible. The roosters come back home in a way that makes the nonchalant breeze of the last two movies so more painful, which makes everything fit together so well to give Peter that essence back, even if the path itself was so different.
It’s not often that the end of a third film in a franchise serves as the hero origin story. I think No Way Home will become more appreciated for that as time goes on because Holland’s Spidey truly did lack motivation. Now he has it.
It’s really quite astonishing how well the Marvel/Sony movies do casting in general, but in all of the films, in every Universe, they still can’t top J.K. Simmons as JJJ. Downey Jr as Stark comes close, but you can see what others might have brought to the role.
It’s impossible to see anyone else play J. Jonah Jameson. To the point where they had no choice but to bring him back.
Nah. A good character actor would feast on that role, especially if they gave him one of the better Jameson stories from the comics. JJ is really one of the greatest characters Marvel ever produced, and you can do so much with him.
Even if they tried to cast someone else, who wants that job?“You want me to follow a role made beloved by JK Simmons? Sorry, pal, even Disney doesn’t have that kind of money.”
Is this definitive?
I don’t understand how people keep perpetuating this idea that the Raimi films didn’t have humor, or that Garfield was so much better at it, or at least had volume on Maguire.Into The Spider-Verse was kind of overhyped for me. It was good, but it wasn’t best superhero of all time good like many made it out to be (and even some of the comments here suggest as much), and it was very flawed. Much of the humor, usually surrounding the superfluous Spider-People, doesn’t really land so much as exist. There also isn’t much in the way of action set piece spectacle, which is unusual compared to other animated films, instead heavily relying on its tight direction and appealing art style that makes every frame look good, just without any specific group of frames that I wish to revisit repeatedly. The final act also rushes to its conclusion, with the hero’s low point, something typically reserved for the entire second act of films, is done away within minutes and he’s 1v1ing Kingpin a couple scenes later. I like the strong characterizations and heart, with the terrible loss felt by Miles being something this Spider-Man does better than the Tom Holland version, which is mostly referenced but not felt. I would rank it above Far From Home, but below Homecoming.I’d also rank Amazing Spider-Man 2 below its prequel, if only because Peter Parker unlearns and relearns the exact same lesson at the cost of someone’s life. He spends the film alternating between being mopey he can’t date Gwen and being obliviously gleeful whenever the mask is on, and when he finally changes his mind because he’s “tired” of that responsibility, she dies 15 minutes later.
I’d rank the Webb films basically tied for dead last—both equally awful.9. AMS28. AMS7. Spider-Man 36. No Way Home5. Far From Home4. Homecoming3. Spider-Man2. Spider-Man 21. Into the Spider-Verse
Here
is my ranking and reasoning.9. AMS- This film is just fails on so many
levels. The first half is just a painful remake of Raimi’s 2002 film where every
scene is done worse. And wow…did the Lizard ever suck as a villain.8. AMS2- After getting burned by the AMS, I still
foolishly paid the price of a theater ticket for this one thinking at least I’d
get to see Spider-Man fighting a cool Rhino-mech. Nope. I put this film above
AMS because it is bad in a way that is mildly amusing.7. Spider-Man 3- If you watch Spider-Man 3 after 1
and 2 it seems less terrible. Tonally, it is actually very consistent with the
other two films and has some memorable scenes- like Peter’s two battles against
the New Goblin. (This needed to be the focus.) Franco, who usually seems like the weak
link in the trilogy, is actually alright in this film. But there clearly are too many
balls in the air and the film fails to do anything truly iconic with any of them.
Still, I’d take this over Return of the Jedi as the end of my trilogy.6. Far From Home- The
weakest of the MCU Spider-Man stories. But Jake
Gyllenhaal elevates the film above Spider-Man 3, reminding us that one compelling
villain is always better than two or three meh villains.5. Into the Spider-Verse- I
love this film, but it has some pacing issues in the second half. I also feel
like the Spider-Verse concept was a bit of a cope-out because Sony still
worried Miles Morales could not hold up a movie on his own. I was ready to see
a Miles solo film yesterday.4. Homecoming- Holland
probably is the best Spider-Man, but his abrupt introduction meant he missed
out on his Uncle Ben moment. Still, I am glad the MCU didn’t rehash the same origin story and Michael Keaton really delivered.3. No Way Home- I was surprised by how much I
liked this film. This will not be a popular opinion, but I think the multiverse
is better executed here than in Into the Spider-Verse for one reason…we have a
history with all of the characters who arrive. This film is the ultimate course
correction for each of the live-action franchises. Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man
finally gets to seem cool (he made the most of this moment) and Electro and
Lizard seem a little less tacky. Tobey addresses the “accidental” murder of
Uncle Ben’s killer- which was his tenures most un-Spidey moment. And Holland finally
gets an Uncle Ben event. But most importantly, the “believe in second chances” theme
makes for a great Spider-Man story, reminding us that none of these villains
started out as a bad person. This film is far more than a “greatest hits compilation” as it makes us rethink many of the old scenes in a new way.2. Spider-Man 2- Only
upstaged by Spider-Man because James Franco clearly didn’t have proper
direction throughout the film. Also, I would have liked
to see a better end battle. But that subway rescue is easily one of the best scene in
any Spider-Man film and Alfred Molina is the best Spider-Man villain.1. Spider-Man-Raimi was the only one who got to properly
play in Spider-Man world and it shows best here. The casting of everyone is
terrific. These actors are who I think of where I think about Spider-Man’s world. We get a perfect Aunt May, J. Jonah
Jameson, Uncle Ben, Norman Osborn and Mary Jane Watson. In fact, the person who
seems the least true to the comic is Tobey’s Maguire’s Peter Parker. Raimi deliberately
chose to play up Peter’s awkwardness, giving us a modern interpretation that is,
if nothing else, true Lee and Ditko’s intentions. And there are so many iconic scenes in this film, including the upside down kiss.
Your list and reasoning behind it is similar to mine, except for the fact that I completely skipped out on Andrew Garfield’s AMS2 and still have zero interest in seeing it.
If I were to rank the Spider-Man movies I’ve seen in order of “can I tell you what the movie is about, beyond a couple of scenes and some one liners,” it would go:Spider-ManHomecomingSpider-Man 3Spider-Man 2Far From HomeInto the Spider-Verse That isn’t a measure of quality, just a note that these things have weirdly convoluted plots.
How is Spider-Man 3’s plot cleaner than 2??
Agree about the spider-verse humor. I hate when Aunt May turns all bad ass and takes them to her secret armory in the shed. Then I hate when Nic Cage (it’s funny cuz it’s nic cage) is posing dramatically and his coat is blowing in the wind and some says Why is there wind in here? yuk, yuk,yuk.
You’re misunderstanding the humor argument. Raimi’s funny, his filmmaking has a lot of humor, and Maguire has good comedic chops for understated and self-deprecating comedy, as shown in those clips. What didn’t work, for the most part, was Spider-Man being funny in his encounters with villains. In the classic comics, Spider-Man’s a chatterbox during action scenes, and most of the villains want to punch him as much to shut him up as to accomplish whatever evil plan they have. The attempts to incorporate that aspect into the Raimi films were lame and promptly abandoned (IIRC, there was a “Let mom and dad talk!” gag during the fight in Jameson’s office and the homophobic classic “Nice outfit! Did your husband make it for you?”). Part of the problem is that the practical Spider-Man mask makes it real hard to emote through, which makes jokes hard to convey.Anyway, for the ASM series they were desperate to find ways to differentiate the Webb/Garfield Spidey from the Raimi/Maguire version, so they leaned into making Spider-Man jokier. And in the first film, it mostly fails. There’s one good bit of humor that comes out of it (the trailer scene of “You’ve figured out my weakness—really small knives!”) and then there’s a bunch of lines that pretty obviously came out of a comedy room, which Garfield ADR’d to spout at random during the scenes when CGI Spider-Man is webslinging around the city. But in the second ASM movie (in the one detail that makes me agree with Dowd that it’s better than the first) they made some effort to show Spider-Man’s humor as a strategy the Garfield Peter Parker deploys to make himself seem older, and not as freaked out in stressful moments. Overall, Webb’s movies are humorless compared to Raimi’s, but this is one tiny aspect of the character that the Webb/Garfield Spidey did better.
Spider-Man 2 may be arguably the best movie, but I still like Tom Holland as the best Spiderman. He seems most like a typical teenager.
The only thing that bothered me while watching SM2, was that it seemed like spiderman was way too overpowered. Stopping the Train? That’s Superman level shit! Otherwise definitely best movie.
Spider-Man is one of the strongest heroes in the Marvel universe in the comics
Same. I identified/bonded with Peter Parker/Spiderman when I was myself a kid, and Holland’s Spiderman is the only (live action) one who really captured my original sense of the character. I like Raimi as a director, and while I liked his first couple movies well enough as their own thing, I think that lack of identification with Maguire’s version was always operating as a background disappointment for me.
I feel like Spiderman’s native aesthetic is close to anime (or animation in general), in the sense that he has such a sense of movement that live action versions feel plodding. The Sam Raimi movies feel too heavy to do the character justice, and they also don’t capture the playfulness of the character very well – They have almost a sense of mise-en-scene that I find jarring in that context.
I don’t really like comic book movies, but Spiderverse nailed it. More of that!
There is absolutely nothing anime about Lee and Ditko’s creation
My post has some question-begging, so I’ll try and unpack more.
To me, anime tends to capture motion better than western animation, which tends to have more detail. Spiderman is the most kinetic superhero I can think of. I think the key to portraying Spiderman well is to keep things moving in more ways than one.
Feel free to disagree – Hopefully that better explains what I mean with my post and what resonates with me.
Not so much a disagreement with you but I don’t really get what you mean by a “sense of mise-en-scene.” Is it that Raimi’s films focus too much on the setting and not enough on the character?
In a strictly visual sense, I sort of do mean that – I often find Raimi’s visual sense to have a quality that makes it look like theater or perhaps green screen. I’m not sure if it’s the shots he uses or what. It’s cool, and I think actually can lend a certain charm of looking like you’re watching action figures, but I also find it to have a very static quality. Think Joel Schumacher doing the Batman movies, but toned down quite a bit.Hopefully I’m conveying what I mean.
I think so. It looks deliberately artificial or theatrical. I personally think it suited a silver age comic book adaptation quite well, bathed in golden light with a bit of nostalgia to it, but I can see how it’s not to everyone’s taste.
Yeah, artificial. I think a strongly defined visual sense is generally a strength, but the particular sense just didn’t happen to work for me. I did enjoy Spiderman 2 quite a bit (haven’t seen it in forever), and I could respect all of what Spiderman 1 did. I’ll give the 3rd one credit for at least going for it.
Hmmm, I have that exact opposite viewpoint. With the exception of high budget movies like Studio Ghibli works, Your Name, I tend to find most anime to be terribly static. I think your average anime compared to your average western cartoon has better storyboarding and visual composition for any given scene, but they cut so many corners with the actual movement you’ll have scenes where the only motion comes from the mouths talking. From my exp. any given scene or frame of a random anime will likely be more detailed in terms of characters, backgrounds etc, but skimp on the actual animation.
That’s fair. What made me think of this was seeing some shots of the live action Cowboy Bebop looking plodding compared with the anime, so I’m privileging certain animes that I think of as really being able to capture motion well. I think a lot of martial arts movies have the right idea in live action (I tend to think that US directors can’t shoot fluid action to save their lives, but astute movie watchers will surely find counterexamples).Again, I think Spiderverse nailed the movement, and I wouldn’t particularly confuse it for anime.
It depends on the anime I think. Something the studio has to pump out weekly, like Shounen anime (Naruto, Dragon Ball, One Piece, etc), has a lot of static moments with VERY highly choreographed scenes sprinkled throughout, whereas something were the studio can take it’s time has a much more consistent movement and fluidity to it. Fullmetal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, and Cowboy Bebop come to mind.
Definitely the anime matters. Only speaking to AoT season 1, but I did find that while they splurged on scenes like the action with all the cable flying, honestly very breath taking, but I felt that outside of moments meant to be visually spectacular, it used the same sort of shortcuts. That said it was probably a choice to save resources for those action scenes so I get it and I didn’t find it that distracting (the angst, the flashbacks, however…I couldn’t stand)
List of all ways to have put out this information, from worst to best100. A slideshow…1. A single page article.
I don’t have any big arguments about the order, but I’m just struck by how much better a good issue of Spider-Man is than any of these. Some are really good! But none can touch Spidey on the page in a well-written and drawn comic.
Spider-Man 3 can go straight to hell. I will hear no apologists, even if it’s somehow refreshing to not be part of the generic MCU franchise or the (admittedly terrible) Amazing Spidey 2. You CAN’T retcon stuff like Uncle Ben that way, or follow up Peter’s attempted murders with that (2nd out of 3) dance sequences. Especially when the whole third act is written like Raimi went, “Oh crap, it’s due tomorrow.” A better title would be Spider-Man 3: The Butler Saves the Day!Seriously, I cannot describe the rage.
Am I the only one who got motion sickness from the animation of “Spiderverse”? For me, it was like watching a 3D movie without the glasses. I understand the story was great, but the “visual style” was not a good thing for me.
I complained to the manager afterwards because I legit thought they showed us a 3-D version. She said she fielded a lot of complaints. The backgrounds were annoying blurry. Totally took me out of it. I saw it again later on a computer screen and it was 100% better.
It’s possible the projectionist messed it up. I didn’t have that problem at all.
Spiderman 3 is a giant mess of a movie, but in terms of rewatchability I would rank it higher than all the other non Sam Raimi live action Spider-Man films. Its the little creative choices he makes. Like in the Sandman fight when Spiderman is pulling on the water pipe and as each bolt bursts he cuts in closer and more dramatically to Sandman. It’s so silly and fun that in comparison I find the other movies bland.Except for Into The Spider verse, that movie is incredible.
Aw, our non-fuck-giving friend gives so few fucks that they’re mass dismissing replies.
Their lack of fucks is so powerful it can negate the fucks given by other people!(Which is to say, I noticed my reply to them had disappeared into the ether.)
Dane DeHaan is one of those actors that I just can’t stand but also can’t help but watch regardless of the film. Valerian is my new favorite hate/love watch of the 2020’s. Every single role he plays it seems like he has marbles in his mouth half the time. He always seems a bit out of place in whatever role he’s playing. I always get a feeling like he’s playing confident because he knows there is no way in hell he should be getting these roles, but I don’t know. Unnecessary Personal Viewing Info: The love/hate watch for the 00’s was of course Eks Vs. Sever. The one for the 10’s was naturally Jupiter Ascending. Everyone in all these three films were just bad. The story was bad. The characters made no sense. The VFX were…they age accordingly. Nothing about any of these three movies is remotely redeemable, yet I’ll re-watch them endlessly. I feel like if MST3K would just be given carte blanc with any and all films they would tear all of these to shreds. In a good way, of course.
Spiderverse is a ringer on this list. I thought it was cool but is WAAAY overhyped. How can anyone find fault with a bright, bouncey cartoon full of non stop references? It’s like main lining pure uncut fan service. It’s fun but certainly not “the best superhero evar!”. I wouldn’t compare it to the live action movies bc its a cartoon. That is to say that it’s doing something entirely seperate from what the Live actions are going for. Apples and oranges.
Yeah Raimi’s 3 is absolutely the top spot on worst spidey film. I get that hating the Webb/Garfield era is popular, for some weird ass reason, but man. There was nothing quite as fucking terrible that I’ve ever seen short of Daredevil’s see-saw fight that approaches some of the fuckery of Spider-Man 3. From Topher-Venom to a non-threat of an Osborn to a re-write of the franchise’s own continuity with Flint Marko, Spider-Man 3 was an absolute waste of celluloid in almost every conceivable fuckin way
Oh and where was you remembering who the fuck Thomas Haden Church was in your actual review of No Way Home, Dowd? That remains one of the most insulting lines ive ever actually read from anything you’ve written. “played by… actually it’s not entirely clear who, even after a climactic de-sanding”dude is a frankenstein ringer, come on now.
I like Far From Home the best out of the MCU movies because it finally hasPeter Parker make a difficult decision, and makes him a tragic sad sack instead of the adopted scion of a billionaire.
ASM2 is worse than ASM by every concievable metric (worse villain, worse story, chemistry between leads somehow ruined) and Into the Spider-Verse is by far the best Spider-movie.I’m sorry, I’ll need your critic’s licenses. It’s for the best, really.
And worse New Yorkers. Seriously, why is there always a crowd of onlookers when superpowered maniacs are tearing up the city?
To me, all 3 trilogies have pretty important flaws in them.
Raimi’s movies were formulaic to a fault (MJ had to be rescued every 5 minutes, Aunt May had to have a long speech at some point that explained the theme of the film, etc…) and, even though it was central to the films, the love story was pretty terrible.The Webb and Watt trilogies both veered too far away from the comics. Webb also had the dullest villains and Watt was way too dependent on the MCU, even though Spider-Man is arguably Marvel’s top character and can easily stand on its own.There’s also bits that I liked in every film. Raimi’s films were really a love letter to the Stan Lee era. Andrew Garfield is IMO the actor who nailed best the funny and kind aspect of Peter Parker. The Watt movies were more committed to their plan to have a young superhero, both in its casting and in its stories.In the end, though, I can help but be a little disappointed of the films we had so far. The character deserves its own Richard Donner, its own Chris Nolan and it hasn’t had that yet.
Pretty close. But Spiderverse beat out the former best, Spiderman 2. And I’d put the Amazing movies in reverse order.
Honestly, I’d put Spider-Verse at 1, move Spider-Man 2 below Homecoming, and put Spider-Man 1 below Far From Home. Spider-Man 2 was good for its time but it ran on the same type of camp that Raimi’s intentionally funny works ran on. Spider-Man 1… I can’t get over how bad the Green Goblin’s costume was. Dafoe killed it in the role but he looked like an extra from Power Rangers had hit up Party City.
I would always put both Amazing Spider-Man movies above Spider-Man 3 though.
Well, they got #1 right.
I take offense to the exclusion of the 1977 Spider-man film.Sure it was made for TV, but it’s still an official live action adaptation of Spider-man.But of course, it should go to the bottom of the list, naturally.
Man, this takes me back. This and Electric Company were my first live-action Spideys.
As a kid in the theater there was nothing like that first time of seeing the Marvel comic pages flip by while Danny Elfman’s mysterious, propulsive theme starts playing. That was goosebump-inducing and spine-tingling, and the movie had literally just started. I’m still disappointed every time I watch a Marvel movie and it’s not that opening. I rewatched them recently and the Raimis are definitely dated, but make up for it in lots of other ways, like their sincerity and joy and sense of humor. I might actually agree with others that Spider-Verse is the best pure movie, but comparing the movies to the time they were made Spider-Man 2 is a pretty wonderful achievement.The Holland Spideys have some good stuff to them but the only scene that matches any individual scene in Spider-Verse or the two Raimis is the car scene between Keaton and Holland. I didn’t mind Amazing Spider-Man as much as some but it’s definitely inessential – I did enjoy the scene with the cranes helping Spidey towards the end. I never watched the sequel, but I’ve seen some individual scenes that make that seem like a good choice.Musically I like that each Spidey has consistency outside of Garfield (the Hans score was pretty awful). I’d rank them Elfman > Elfman/Young (for Spidey 3 after Elfman and Raimi split) > Horner > Giacchino > Zimmer. Giacchino’s scores are good and fun but seem a little surface-level and cutesy, whereas I thought Horner’s theme is actually pretty underrated for Amazing Spider-Man.
I too enjoyed BatmanAs a kid in the theater there was nothing like that first time of seeing the … comic pages flip by while Danny Elfman’s mysterious, propulsive theme starts playing.
Aw you tried so hard to be snarky for no reason even though Batman doesn’t start in a remotely similar way! Good on you.
#2 at #1 is the only correct answer as it’s also the best superhero movie.
I’ll tell you exactly why Amazing Spider-man 2 is so bad: during the Electro fight, when Spider-man gets smacked around the metal poles, it’s to the tune of ‘Incy Wincy Spider’.
My Top 5:
1. Spider-Verse
2. The unmade James Cameron film
3. The unmade Golan/Globus film
4. The one they finally did make in 2001/02
5. Whichever one of the ersatz movies they made by combining two episodes of the Nicholas Hammond TV series it was where they accidentally played the same scene twice
The Toby Maguire movies will always be dead last to me in the Spiderman movies. Even Andrew Garfield was better.
I still enjoy the first Sam Raimi edition of Spider Man 2002 the best. I think all have great attributes to them, but the ‘02 was the comic book movie I waited for since childhood. I was in my early 20’s at that time and saw it in the theatres and was quite excited to see how a live adaption would come out. It was the near perfect version of the origins and early stories of Spider Man from the 1960’s placed in the modern world of the year released. Tobey Maguire made for a believable Peter Parker. Kirsten Dunst was quite good for Mary Jane Watson. James Franco who I was not familiar with, was a good Harry Osborn. Willem Dafoe, who when I petitioned to play Norman Osborn/Green Goblin was the perfect casting. JK Simmons whom I was not familiar with and when I first saw him and speak as J Jonah Jamison I thought was the carbon copy real life version of the comic and first wave cartoon series. I still think a lot of that movie still holds up. One can tell Sam Raimi truly put his passion into this project and many viewers did agree with the final project in 2002.
I still think Spiderverse is not just the best Spiderman movie but one of the best Animated movies of the last decade, and there’s a lot of competition there. Though, as a compositor working in animation, I did want to murder animators that took “inspiration” from it and felt the need to animate various elements on both ones and twos in same scene.
So where does ‘Turn Off the Dark’ fit into the list?
man this list sucks
Who made this fucking list? Homecoming was pretty good…and I’d put it at least at #2. The Vulture was a great villain.
For the most part, I really don’t like the entire superhero genre, in print, film or TV, yet I quite enjoyed Raimi’s Spiderman 2. Not surprised to see it at the top of the list here.
I think the MCU movies, as a trio, are right in the middle, but I think Homecoming is the weakest. I would put Homecoming at 6, No Way Home 5, and Far From Home 4; Gyllanhaal’s performance is that good.
Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 are about how you should not trust tech-bros and billionaires and not look to them as role models, while the MCU movies are about how tech-bros and billionaires are actually heroes and absolutely who you should look to for a daddy figure.
No Way Home is easily better than Far From Home, and I would argue better than Homecoming as well. Hell, I think at this point I’d give it the edge over the original Spider-Man as well. But I’ll concede that Spider-Man 2 and Into the Spiderverse may be considered better than it by many. Not sure where I personally fall in this regard, but it’s definitely in my top 3.
Into the Spider-verse is not only the best Spidey movie, I thought it was the best movie I saw that entire year. It’s a crime it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. A CRIME. And a hill I’m willing to die on.
Least controversial list ever? I mean, you can argue (well, mildly quibble) about the order for ASM and ASM2, and the same for SM2 and SM:ITSV, but that’s about it…
This list has on it a movie in which Dane DeHaan was cast in a role where he had to speak for full sentences with that horrifying, nails-on-a-chalkboard voice of his, where—just like in all of his other roles—he constantly sounds like he’s struggling to spit out every word…..& that movie isn’t dead last? Dowd, are you deaf or something?
You know, I’m in my 40s now. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I do my best to let people enjoy what they’re going to enjoy; I generally have very little interest in arguing or getting angry about any one person’s particular take on what films they like or what films I like.That said.Much as I loved Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, putting Spiderverse in the #2 spot below it is a literal crime worthy of the Hague. Spiderverse is, afaic, the absolute untouchable pinnacle of these films. It is about as damn close to perfection as it is possible to get. Were I a younger and angrier sort still, I’d almost be tempted to suspect that it was relegated to the #2 spot to provoke exactly this sort of interaction and discussion…
Into the Spiderverse ist the best, then Andrew Garfields movies, then Hollands, then there’s a lot of free space and then, waaaaay down there McGuires bad bad movies.
Pretty good list, but “Far From Home” is objectively not a good movie and is easily the worst of the Holland/MCU/“Home” movies.
Spider-Man 2 (and the first one) is an actual movie, instead of just a whiz-bang, soulless brand extension, like at least 50% of the MCU.
Somehow I had completely forgotten Sandman was in the Raimi films. My memory was that he was in one of the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films. Also, I continue to think everyone remembers those Raimi films with rose-tinted glasses. Tobey never seemed like Peter Parker to me, which is a pretty big deal when he’s the main character. Also, his costume is so stupid with those raised webs that I could never see some poor kid from Queens inventing. I would have gone “Homecoming,” or “Into the Spider-Verse,” as the number one.
I don’t know how you can rank Far From Home as better than No Way Home. I’ve never rewatched any of FFH except the one “Spidey loses to Mysterio’s illusions” scene (which admittedly is awesome). Can’t wait to watch NWH again. Also i disliked ASM 2 more than ASM, the Electro character was so off-putting that i couldn’t get past it, and squeezing in Harry Osborn felt like too much for one movie. I at least felt like lizard was a decent villain despite not really feeling the cgi. Plus they didn’t give us the Rhino battle! I also love into the spider-verse but i dunno, comparing it to the live action ones feels like apples and oranges. I’m the same when it comes to comparing What If to the other mcu shows.
Spider-man 2 is the best ever and this is coming from someone who read Spider-man comics since 1979 when he was 5/6 years old (Still have my number 193 without the cover on my wall, my 1st comic I saved).I will say No way home was awesome, I liked it way better than the other 2 holland movies as I felt he finally became Peter Parker, with real loss and we got the amazing real death pain as Peter he has to have. Fuck Irom man, Peter never needed a replacement father, that’s beyond sexist, he had everything he fucking ever needed in May.I would go1. Spider-man 22. Spider-man (2002 as a New yorker this movie helped so many of us feel normal again)3. Spider-man no way home4. Spider verse (overrated to be even if it’s great but I’m a Peter parker guy even if it’s nice to see Spidey as a POC since I was a Brown kid growing up in racist queens NYC myself)
I mean… Right from the jump, I should have known this was going to be bad. The Amazing Spider-Man is objectively better than The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in every imaginable way. I mean, the villain work alone (and Dane DeHaan’s unbelievably bad performance) make TASM2 pure, unfiltered garbage. I’d even argue that TASM is better than Spider-Man 3, but that’s much more subjective. I’m also not sure how anyone could think No Way Home isn’t the best of the 3 MCU Spider-Man movies, but again, that’s pretty subjective and I think they’re all pretty close to one another.Into the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man
No Way Home
Homecoming
Far From Home
TASM
Spider-Man 3
TASM2