Spider-Man’s latest cinematic outing, Far From Home, recently swung into theaters (the pun was impossible to resist, sorry) and, despite having to follow Avengers: Endgame, it has left fans across the world satisfied and dying to see more. Far From Home star Tom Holland is far from the first actor to play Spidey.
Across eight theatrically released movies (so far), we’ve seen three actors play Spider-Man in live-action movies and a handful of voice actors play interdimensional Spideys in last year’s gorgeous animated adventure Into the Spider-Verse. A lot of those eight movies were great, but there were a couple of shaky installments along the way. Here is Every Spider-Man Movie, Ranked By Rotten Tomatoes Score.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (52%)
After the disastrous response to Spider-Man 3, you’d think that Sony had learned their lesson about cramming too many villains into a Spider-Man movie. And after the mixed response to his own Spider-Man reboot, you’d think that Marc Webb had learned his lesson about rehashing plots that Sam Raimi already nailed less than a decade earlier.
But on both counts, you’d be wrong, because Sony crowded The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Electro, Rhino, and the Green Goblin, and Webb followed up a version of Spidey’s origin story that was worse than Sam Raimi’s with a version of the Peter Parker/Harry Osborn rivalry that was also worse than Sam Raimi’s.
Spider-Man 3 (63%)
Although it’s the black sheep (or maybe the sheep just bonded with some symbiotes) of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Spider-Man 3 probably isn’t as bad as you remember. Sure, the movie fails Venom (which isn’t really Raimi’s fault, since he doesn’t know the Venom character and was forced to include him at the behest of Avi Arad), the scenes of Peter under the influence of the symbiotes are laughable in a bad way, and the movie as a whole feels overstuffed.
But the action sequences are incredible, the Sandman’s scenes have more emotional resonance than anyone would like to admit, and it was – all things considered – a fitting conclusion to the trilogy.
The Amazing Spider-Man (72%)
Marc Webb’s reboot of the Spider-Man franchise – the very existence of which felt preposterous, because it had only been five years since we said our farewells to Tobey Maguire’s seminal Peter Parker – promised to give us the darker untold story of Spider-Man’s origin story.
However, despite giving us a mysterious flashback to when Peter’s parents were alive, The Amazing Spider-Man failed to add anything that Sam Raimi’s original didn’t already cover. It’s not a bad superhero movie; it just doesn’t feel necessary, since what it was trying to do (give Spidey a big-screen origin story) was already done perfectly a decade earlier.
TIE: Spider-Man: Far From Home (90%)
Jon Watts’ MCU solo sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home was presented with the Herculean task of following up Avengers: Endgame. Of course, the stakes were lower and the scale was smaller, but against all odds, Far From Home managed to be a massively satisfying movie.
Its plotting wasn’t as tight as its predecessor Homecoming, but there were plenty of shocking twists and turns to make up for that. There was also a healthy mix of humor, poignancy, romance, and action, while Jake Gyllenhaal gave an unforgettable turn as Mysterio and Zendaya portrayed MJ’s hidden vulnerability in a larger role spectacularly.
TIE: Spider-Man (90%)
Sam Raimi’s initial Spider-Man movie tells the character’s origin story in an excited way, it’s faithful to all the characters and their relationships, and despite the controversially expressionless Green Goblin costume, it’s brilliantly designed.
Key moments like the radioactive spider’s bite and the murder of Uncle Ben are as iconic and unforgettable in the movie as they were in the original comics and Tobey Maguire’s first outing as Peter Parker won over even the most stubborn naysayers. But it’s even more important than being a great movie. Spider-Man redefined the style and structure of superhero movies. It set Hollywood off on a path that led directly to the MCU.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (92%)
Although it was the beginning of the third Spidey franchise in a decade, Spider-Man: Homecoming gave us a Spider-Man movie unlike any before. It followed on from his debut in Captain America: Civil War, which made it new territory in itself, which meant that there was no pesky obligation to retell the character’s origin story and director Jon Watts could dive right in. Homecoming asks important thematic questions that Sam Raimi’s movies did ask and Marc Webb’s didn’t.
Why does Peter want to be a superhero? Does he actually have what it takes? But none of this philosophical musing ever gets in the way of the action. From the breathtaking Washington Monument sequence to the jaw-dropping Vulture twist, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a fantastic movie.
Spider-Man 2 (93%)
As great as Tom Holland has been in the role of Spider-Man, he still has yet to make a movie that takes the crown from Spider-Man 2 as your friendly neighborhood webslinger’s finest live-action outing. Deftly balancing the double lives of Peter Parker and Spider-Man and asking what it truly means to be a hero, Spider-Man 2 is a true masterpiece.
Sam Raimi suitably upped the stakes from the first one; in the first one, he gave Peter Parker superpowers, so in the second one, to match that transformation, he took them away again. Although it was relatively early in the superhero blockbuster oeuvre, it set many standards that still hold up today. It took the MCU a decade to even give us a villain as memorable as Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (97%)
It was a tough sell to bring an entirely new Spider-Man into a multiplex that was already in the middle of its third Spider-Man franchise, but luckily, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was innovative and groundbreaking enough to differentiate itself from all previous Spidey movies.
For the first time on the big screen, we got a Spider-Man whose alter ego wasn’t Peter Parker – instead, it was Miles Morales (and a ton of others, but Miles was the main one) – and it was animated gorgeously to bring comic book and cartoon together in the same medium. It’s unsurprising that Into the Spider-Verse tops the list, because this movie is beautiful in every sense of the word.