I have always been a huge Spider-Man fan. I find him to be so much more interesting than the god-like Superman and the brooding Batman. The fact that he dealt with real problems that a person such as myself might deal with such as high school, dating, and puberty, along with fighting villains that could turn into water or a man covered in a liquid metal. I collected his comics from the moment I could afford to buy them for myself and continued to do so probably longer than I should have if I was going to have a social life. And yet now Spider-Man is cool and popular amongst even the cool kids. This is because of the many movies that have comes out in the last twenty years starting with Spider-Man in 2002 directed by Sam Raimi. Before we only had a campy cartoon in the late 1960s that claimed "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can" and a equally campy television show in the late 1970s where special effects were not quite ready to demonstrate his powers and showed him climbing up walls by having him crawl on the ground and turning the camera on its side. Now we could actually see him swinging through the city.
In the last 20 years there have been 8 really well made Spider-Man films that have been made by three talented filmmakers. What I'm here to tell you here today is how these films rank. This is no easy task because honestly, unlike some of these rankings, none of these films is bad (except one). In fact, the top 5 are all excellent films that make it difficult to choose from, but alas, there are no ties when ranking films. So let's get started.
1) Spider-Man 2 (2004) - This is the generally agreed upon high-water mark of the Spider-Man franchise and super hero moves in general. I would put this on my Mount Rushmore along with Dark Knight, X-Men: First Class, and Captain America: Civil War. It transcends the comic book movie genre. This is the Sam Raimi directed trilogy and with everyone having gotten their feet wet with the first one, they found their groove here. Tobey Maguire played a convincingly anguished Spider-Man who is struggling to juggle his responsibilities as a super hero with those as a boyfriend. It comes to the point where he even begins to lose his powers, unable to stick to walls or shoot webbing out of his wrists. He is fighting with himself more than he is fighting any bad guy. Although when he does fight the bad guy it is one of the best. Alfred Molina plays Doctor Octopus, a villain that would have been nearly impossible to pull off a decade before, but is done with excellent special effects. In addition to all of this, it has one of the best ending lines to all of the Spider-Man movies when the best love interest of all of the movies, Kirsten Dunst, delivers her "Go get em tiger" as Peter goes swinging out of the building to fight crime.
2) Spider Man: No Way Home (2021) - the first half of this movie was ok. Sure this third of the Tom Holland MCU Spider-Man films had some nice surprises such as seeing Dr. Strange and Dr. Octopus along with the original Green Goblin. But then when a staple of the franchise is unnecessarily killed, I sort of became disinterested with the movie. That is until Ned opens a portal for Peter to come through and instead of Tom Holland, out comes none other than Andrew Garfield. If that isn't enough, they open another one only to find the original Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire. Having the three Spider-Men from all three franchises is such a treat that I was giddy with excitement the rest of the film. So many times we are comparing who was the best James Bond or who portrayed the role of Dracula most menacingly. But never do we get all of the actors who played these roles on screen at the same time until now. It allows you to compare apples to apples and really see who played it best, not who happened to have the best screenplay or the better director. What became very apparent to me and surprising as well is that Andrew Garfield is the best Spider-Man. The confidence with which he plays the role in this film, the way he handles humor so effortlessly, and the emotional weight he brings in just the smallest of scenes makes his counterparts pale in comparison. It makes me wonder what could have been if he had had a third movie.
3) Spider-Man (2002) - the first one was a groundbreaking film. Super hero movies did not have the respect they have nowadays. For every Superman and X-Men there were dozens and dozens of terrible attempts prior to this one. Sam Raimi had attempted his own anti superhero movie that was pretty good called Darkman (1990) but here he was getting a chance to play in the sandbox and he did not waste his opportunity. This movie got about everything right. From its casting of the unexpected Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man to the aforementioned excellent Kirsten Dunst. Nothing like a scenery chewing Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin and James Franco as his son. Spider-Man purists were unhappy with the change that Spider-Man could shot his webs straight from his wrists rather than developing his webslingers like in the comics, but this was a whole lot more believable.
4) The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - 10 years after the original, Sony decided to reboot the franchise and start all over again. This seemed sort of strange to me. Then they cast some guy I'd never heard of before, Andrew Garfield. And the guy directing it had only directed one previous film and it had not been some special effects heavy action film. It had been a small, charming picture called 500 Days of Summer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a definite see if you get the chance). I was so pissed I avoided seeing it in the movie theatres, but when I finally got around to watching it, man was I impressed. Much more raw than the original trilogy and much more dangerous. I actually worried for Spider-Man's life while fighting again the Lizard and wondered how he was going to stop him. And of course, the amazing Emma Stone. I don't think I need to say much more than that. The only reason why it isn't higher is because of an unnecessary backstory with Peter's father that wasn't part of the original comic books and the uncanny coincidences that make him getting his powers possible.
5) Spider Man: Homecoming (2017) - Although introduced in the best superhero film of all time, Captain America: Civil War, this is the first solo effort for Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Directed by Jon Watts, this version of Spider-Man is not my favorite. Having collected the comics as kid, the appeal of the character to me was his scrappiness (which was captured so well by the Garfield version). I felt the Holland version relied too much on the technological suit that Tony Stark provided for him back in Civil War. He relies on the suit to get him out of jams rather than his own powers and resourcefulness. He sort of becomes a mini-Iron Man. Nevertheless, Holland plays a younger Parker with the proper amount of innocence and enthusiasm. They thankfully don't bother with the origin story we've seen twice before. And Marisa Tomei as Aunt May is an inspiring bit of casting as the role is usually reserved for much older ladies. Michael Keaton shows he can play a villain just as well as he can a hero as the Vulture.
6) Spider-Man 3 (2007) - Sam Raimi has always skirted the line of campy in his Evil Dead films and here he sort of crosses that line with the bad Peter Parker who is possessed by the alien from outer space. When he goes out dancing to the tune of Saturday Night Fever, one cannot help but roll one's eyes. This films also suffers from too many bad guys. This tends to happen with sequels where in order to raise the stakes they simply add more villains rather than write a good screenplay which just makes for a muddled story. In this one Spider-Man is fighting the Sandman, Venom, and the second Green Goblin. Any one of these stories might have been interesting but when you mash them all together you get a bit of a mess. But of course you still have Tobey Maguire, you still have Kirsten Dunst, and you still have Danny Elfman's great score.
7) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - This film had the wrong agenda which was not to tell a Spider-Man story. Its agenda was to set up a Spider-Man universe which is a heavy burden to carry. As a result there are too many things going on, too many characters unnecessarily being introduced, and too little focus being spent on who matters; Spider-Man. Garfield again gives a great performance but Jamie Fox mishandles his portrayal of the bad guy Electro and Dane DeHaan couldn't possibly chew the scenery any worse than he does as the Green Goblin. Emma Stone is, well, the amazing Emma Stone. The thing that almost makes this film higher for me is the very thing it received a lot of criticism for which was the death of a character straight out of the comic book. I couldn't believe the producers were brave enough to go through with it. But when the movie only (only?) made $709 million, they scrapped this series and moved on to reboot it again. I always wondered what could have been if they had just let Garfield be Spider-Man and not try and build this entire cinematic universe that actually never ended up happening.
8) Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) - Out of all of the Spider-Man movies this is the only one I openly dislike. I think this is because it had so much potential to be good and then it wasn't. It had such a cool bad guy in Mysterio, played by the always dependable Jake Gyllenhaal. But then they took Spider-Man out of New York. That is like taking Batman out of Gotham City. And it relied so heavily on his suit and these stupid, stupid glasses that Tony Stark left behind for Peter. This was just the most out-of-character Spider-Man movie and I left the theatre with a bad taste in my mouth. Wanting to make sure I was not just having a bad day, I watched it again on Blu-Ray and felt even more strongly about it. Definitely a Spider-Man movie I could do without.
One film I decided to leave off of this list but that would place very high, probably at 31/2 on the list would be Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). It has rip-roaring action but also has a big ol' heart. I choose not to include it because although Peter Parker is in it, Miles Morales is the primary Spider-Man. And besides that, it is animated but has strong voice-work by all involved.
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