Entertainment
All 9 Live-Action Spider-Man Movies, Ranked
Spider-Man is the big Marvel superhero, doing for that side of the comics world what Batman and Superman do for DC. There are other heavy-hitters Marvel-wise, of course, like Iron Man, Captain America, and the X-Men, but Spider-Man is just another level of popular, and maybe another level of reliable, too. There have been almost a dozen Spider-Man-centric movies made since 2002, making his dominance over the 21st century hard to deny.
Now, two of those are Spider-Verse movies, which are top-tier, but they’re animated, and so they’re not going to be counted below. Also, the likes of Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame all feature Peter Parker/Spider-Man in supporting roles, and since he’s not the lead in any of them, they won’t be counted below as “Spider-Man” movies. Instead, here’s a ranking of all the live-action Spider-Man movies released theatrically to date, starting with the one misfire of the bunch and then progressing onto eight that range in quality from pretty good to pretty great.
9
‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ (2014)
It’s the messy one. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is such an overstuffed mess of a movie, sorry. It’s not irredeemable, and there are worse superhero movies out there, but it really collapses under its own weight in so many regards. There’s a certain Spider-Man movie from 2007 that this one felt like it learned all the wrong lessons from, in terms of having too many villains and stuff in general going on, and maybe another comparable movie is The Dark Knight Rises.
Though The Dark Knight Rises has higher highs than The Amazing Spider-Man 2. All this 2014 movie has to offer are some visuals that are occasionally striking, and a few things that set up some good moments in the third Spider-Man movie Andrew Garfield featured in… no, not one where he got to star as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was his final (at least for now) time playing the central character in a Spider-Man movie, and he did as well as he could with what he was given here. The sentiment that he was a pretty great actor for this series who didn’t get the best material is an often echoed – but overall fair – one.
8
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ (2012)
While The Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t technically give Peter Parker as much to do, compared to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it does give Andrew Garfield more to do, or at least it’s a better opportunity for him to showcase why he was right to play Spider-Man (even if it was a short run). He is the Millennial Spider-Man, while the live-action actor before him was probably more late-Gen X, and then the one after was born right near the start of Gen Z (maybe a “Zillennial,” but whatever).
The biggest problem here is that The Amazing Spider-Man is another origin story for Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and is just too narratively similar to the first big Spider-Man origin story, which had only come out 10 years earlier. It would’ve been like Ben Affleck’s Batman being given an origin story in 2015, only a decade after Batman Begins. Just not needed, and too repetitive. It’s far from bad, as an origin story, and probably even a good film in its own right, but if you’d seen the 2002 one (even 10 years earlier), you were likely destined to get some déjà vu while watching this.
7
‘Spider-Man 3’ (2007)
While it marked the final time Sam Raimi directed a Spider-Man movie (to date), and the final instance of Tobey Maguire playing the lead role, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t the proper end of things for either. The former returned to the superhero genre by directing the second Doctor Strange film, and Maguire made a memorable appearance in one of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. But that’s getting ahead of things a little.
Spider-Man 3 has some of the same problems as The Amazing Spider-Man 2. There are a handful of villains here who end up stepping on each other’s toes, and the final act in particular suffers from feeling overstuffed. All the stuff with Peter Parker going through his emo phase, though, and the bits of the film where the camp is dialed up to new levels… yeah, you can kind of see why it’s been re-evaluated. People “get” Spider-Man 3 a little more nowadays, and it feels hard to call it the worst Spider-Man movie, as a result. There are still things about it that don’t work, but not as many as there may have seemed once, 15 to (almost) 20 years ago.
6
‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ (2019)
It speaks to the consistency of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, at least so far, that the “weakest” of his ones to date is the still pretty good Spider-Man: Far From Home. This is the movie equivalent of a vacation episode, since most of it takes place during a summer trip to Europe, with it being admittedly somewhat taxing to adjust to a live-action Spider-Man movie that doesn’t have New York City as its central location.
It’s a fun film, or fun enough, and it also feels interesting in being something of an epilogue to Avengers: Endgame, with Endgame not actually being the final film of Phase 3, since Far From Home played that role. There’s an argument to be made that at this stage, Peter Parker/Spider-Man doesn’t have as much of an identity separated from the Avengers and the broader MCU, but this was addressed/amended, to some extent, in Holland’s third and fourth outings as Spider-Man. Speaking of…
5
‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (2026)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the most recent Spider-Man movie, and the fourth starring Tom Holland, making him now the most prolific Spider-Man actor, certainly by lead appearances, and then overall, too, thanks to him being in three other MCU movies. He largely gets to stand alone here, necessitated by the way the third movie ended, with him getting a fresh start as Spider-Man and without anyone knowing he’s really Peter Parker.
So, Tom Holland gets to carry a lot of the movie, more so than his past Spider-Man movies, and he’s great here. Most of the supporting players are also good, and they really only start to distract from the Spider-Man stuff a bit in the final act, which is where you feel the MCU machine taking over a little, and setting up future movies (possibly Avengers: Doomsday, though more likely films actually beyond that). It almost gets a bit much, but Brand New Day sort of sticks the landing, and then lots of the ride it provides up until that point is also successfully exciting, not to mention decently emotional at times, too.
4
‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ (2017)
Tom Holland is so smol in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Lil’ baby Tom Holland. Well, young is the better word. He’s young. And he actually feels really young here, and that does make his Peter Parker feel small in a vulnerable and endearing kind of way. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield both felt like guys in their 20s playing high schoolers, because they were, at least in their first movies. Tom Holland was younger, being only just 20 when Spider-Man: Homecoming was filmed, and he does actually look like a high schooler.
That helps Spider-Man: Homecoming work particularly well as a coming-of-age movie on top of being a superhero one, potentially even to the extent that it’s a better coming-of-age film than it is a superhero movie. The more expected superhero action here is still good, though, and seeing Tony Stark/Iron Man have a prominent role in this movie without being right at the center the way he was for his own movies and the Avengers ones was neat. This is just an inherently likable and crowd-pleasing movie, and proved to be a particularly good opportunity for Holland to showcase (after a scene-stealing role in Captain America: Civil War) why he was a good choice for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. And no retread of the Spider-Man origin story here, either, which was a big plus.
3
‘Spider-Man’ (2002)
2002’s Spider-Man began the webslinger’s reign over cinema, and though that reign was on potentially shaky ground during Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, he kept pulling through. There was goodwill for the character overall, even if Spider-Man 3 might’ve halted the Tobey Maguire run, and then The Amazing Spider-Man 2 might’ve halted the Andrew Garfield run. Watch out, Tom Holland; don’t trip up. This series is unforgiving.
2002’s Spider-Man was the first time there was a proper blockbuster/theatrically released movie about Spider-Man, and it was phenomenal for its time.
Uh… Spider-Man, though. The character had existed on the page for decades before 2002, of course, and there had been some TV shows and TV movies with the character before, but 2002’s Spider-Man was the first time there was a proper blockbuster/theatrically released movie about Spider-Man, and it was phenomenal for its time. Alongside the first X-Men, and maybe the first couple of Blade movies, it suggested Marvel superheroes could really dominate the box office into the 21st century in a way only really Superman and Batman had done during the 20th century (and even then, not 100% of the time). Without Spider-Man (2002) and its success, the blockbuster world might well look very different today.
2
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (2021)
There are problems with Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s pretty blatantly dependent on nostalgia, with the whole poorly-kept secret, in the lead-up to its release, surrounding the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. But it was fun to feel like it was a mystery, and then not knowing 100% still made it a blast in that scene where they enter the picture (more or less literally).
Other than that, it is a bigger Spider-Man movie than the previous two Tom Holland ones, and he gets some moments to shine here, while the scenes he does end up sharing with Holland and Maguire are also great. Two all-time great villains are brought back, from the Maguire movies, and then No Way Home even does a decent job at making Electro a better character than he was in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And there is one other moment near the climax that harkens back to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and makes it a bit stronger in hindsight, giving Andrew Garfield’s Peter some genuinely touching emotional closure. Maybe No Way Home is a tiny bit messy, but it’s messy in a good way, and that final act is excellent, all the while giving Tom Holland’s Peter some origin story-esque stuff, just in a more interesting and unexpected way (if you know, you know).
1
‘Spider-Man 2’ (2004)
Spider-Man 2 does so many things right that just calling it the best of the live-action Spider-Man movies doesn’t feel like enough praise. It’s right up there among the best and most important movie sequels of all time, doing a bit of an Empire Strikes Back thing, feeling to Spider-Man (2002) what that movie was to the original Star Wars. In both cases, you have an original that did everything exceptionally well, and then a sequel that took all that worked and made everything even better.
This movie gets off to a great start, and then just keeps building with the difficulties it puts Peter through, the comedy that hits the mark almost every time (not something you can say about the more recent Spider-Man movies and their jokes, honestly), and then it finds room to make Doc Ock just as compelling a villain as the Green Goblin was in the first movie, which is saying a lot. Spider-Man 2 is the gold standard for live-action superhero movies generally, and feels like a true masterpiece that was great in 2004, and has honestly aged so well that it feels like an even greater movie nowadays, some 20+ years later.
Spider-Man 2
- Release Date
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June 30, 2004
- Runtime
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127 minutes
- Director
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Sam Raimi
- Writers
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Alvin Sargent, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Michael Chabon
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