Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse swung into theaters in December of 2018 and immediately captivated audiences with its revolutionary take on the beloved superhero genre and breathtaking animation style. Directed by the talented trio of Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, and Bob Persichetti, this animated masterpiece defied conventions and soared to unprecedented heights.

The film successfully introduces the concept of the multiverse and seamlessly weaves together the stories of various Spider-People from different dimensions. At its core, the film follows the journey of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a teenager grappling with newfound powers in the wake of the death of his universe’s Spider-Man. His world is spun even more out of control as he meets alternate universe heroes that make him question if he is ready for his new responsibilities.

Accolades poured in for the film, with the crowning achievement being the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. This recognition affirmed not only the technical brilliance of the animation but also the emotional depth and storytelling prowess that elevated Into the Spider-Verse beyond the status of a mere superhero film.

As first time viewers delve into the intricate web of dimensions and the extraordinary journey of Miles, it becomes clear that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is more than a cinematic experience – it’s a groundbreaking achievement that redefined expectations for animated storytelling in the West and left an indelible mark on the superhero genre.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are highlighting the 10 best moments from the film that define why Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse continues to enthral audiences, and we will explore its legacy as one of the best comic book movies of all time.

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10. Welcome to the Spider-Verse

This is how you start a movie.

The rising intensity of the opening music. The glitching of the studio logos. The flashes of graffiti. Then blam: the intro fully kicks in and we are treated to the visual feast that is this movie. An explosion of colours and funky graphics inform us that Into the Spider-Verse is unlike any other comic book movie in that it is unashamed of its genre.

Following this is the opening monologue from Peter Parker (don’t get too attached), beginning the recurring “Alright, let’s do this one last time” gag. Peter, voiced by Chris Pine, gives a brief rundown of things most audiences will already know, narrating his life and the responsibilities that come with being Spider-Man. Yes, we’re technically seeing another screen Spider-Man origin story, but the writers make this one concise and fresh. This self-awareness lends itself nicely to some humorous moments, such as detailing the smaller Spider-Man duties, like having his own cereal or recording a Christmas album. 

Furthermore, there are plenty of references to Spider-Man in pop culture for fans to feast on. Did anyone expect them to reference the abominable Spider-Man popsicle? The animators even draw comparison to other Spidey iterations on screen, like the upside down kiss, the train scene in Spider-Man 2, and the legendary dance scene from Spider-Man 3.

It is the film’s thesis statement: funny, fast-paced and visually spectacular. The perfect introduction to one of the most unique comic book movies. Simultaneously, these opening 2 minutes are a celebration of all things Spider-Man, and a reminder why the iconic hero has endured for so long on page, on screen, and in wider popular culture.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Moments from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy

9. Meet Miles

A film is arguably only as good as its characters, and a film filled with fantastical Spider-people could have a hard time making its protagonist stand out. Within seconds of meeting Miles Morales, its clear audiences have a beloved hero to root for.

The first time we see Miles, he is caught up in his passions: artwork and music. His singing is gradually drowned out by his parents calling his name. He is pulled out of his daydream and into an all too relatable scenario – a teenager late for school. 

This quickly transitions to a high-energy montage showcasing Miles’ daily life, complete with the vibrant backdrop of Brooklyn. We are immersed in the sights and sounds of Miles’ world as they see a new side to him. As he walks through his neighbourhood, he is cool and approachable. His effortless charm makes him instantly likable. The dynamic animation, coupled with a hip-hop soundtrack, creates a sense of kinetic energy that mirrors the pulse of Miles’ urban environment. As Miles parades through the streets, leaving stickers of his artwork, he trips and is caught by his dad, a police officer. We are reminded that, despite his coolness, he’s still an awkward kid. These relatable struggles form the necessary strong connections between Miles and each of us.

These first moments with Miles do more for the film’s central character than a lot of comic book movies manage to do in their entire runtime. Miles’ humour and occasional awkwardness make him endearing. He embodies the youthful enthusiasm and idealism associated with adolescence, making him a perfect vessel for audiences diving into this larger than life story.

Sparking his passion as a filmmaker at a young age, Raimi was making a slew of Super 8 short films with his friends as a teenager, releasing his very first feature film It’s Murder! (1977) at only eighteen years old. By the time 1981 rolled around and Raimi was twenty-two, he cemented himself as an exciting up and coming director with The Evil Dead, establishing his legacy in the annals of horror history. Over twenty years later, the director was a certified A-list filmmaker in Hollywood, directing some of the most influential superhero movies of all time and proving himself as one of the best and most recognisable directors in the industry.

Though Raimi still directs here and there, his work has slowed down considerably, releasing only two features since 2009. Thankfully, Raimi primarily spends his time lending his name to up and coming directors as a producer, playing a major role in the release of new and exciting movies like 30 Days of Night, Don’t Breathe, Crawl and 65. 

Raimi may no longer bless us with his own directed films as often as he once did, but the excitement that presides over a film whenever it has his name attached only goes to show what a true force he is in the world of filmmaking. Regardless of the story, genre or company he is directing for, it is always clear that it is a Sam Raimi picture. Having broken down Raimi’s vast and varied filmography, here is The Film Magazine’s guide on Where to Start With Sam Raimi.

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

When it comes to the story of The Evil Dead, there really are three separate places you could start. Firstly, there is the proof-of-concept short film Within the Woods that Raimi directed in order to entice investors into producing a feature film. Then came The Evil Dead, the bloody horror flick that introduced Raimi, Bruce Campbell and company to the world and really kicked off their careers. Lastly, there is Evil Dead II, which is truly the best place to begin with the work of Sam Raimi. Though technically a sequel, it is for all intents and purposes a remake, reintroducing fans of The Evil Dead to its wacky and individualistic world, all the while introducing first-time viewers to the story by rewriting and presenting it all in the first 10 minutes.

For the uninitiated, the Evil Dead 2 follows Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) as he and some friends go to spend a few nights in a cabin in the woods. After discovering and playing an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment both him and his friends. A tale as old as time, really. 

Though it may be the third telling of this same story, it really is the ultimate version of The Evil Dead. Raimi clearly tightens up the screws and masters his passion project, taking the issues of the first movie being laughably camp and silly and using them to its advantage, in the process creating the entire basis of what makes the series and the character of Ash Williams so memorable and iconic. 

Filled to the brim with characteristically witty one liners and memorable moments (such as Ash’s famous catchphrase, “Groovy!”), Evil Dead 2 exhibits Sam Raimi going Full Raimi, allowing his balls to the wall style to take us on a campy horror adventure for the ages.

There may be more accessible watches for first time viewers of the director’s work but if you want a fully fledged introduction to Sam Raimi, Evil Dead 2 is perfect.

A Simple Plan (1998)

A Simple Plan is up there as one of the most underrated films of all time and certainly the most underrated of Raimi’s often praised career. Though he is most notably known for his horror or superhero flicks, Sam Raimi has made a handful of genre films, covering westerns, sports dramas and neo-noirs, as is the case with A Simple Plan.

Set in rural Minnesota, the story follows three hunters – brothers Hank (Bill Paxton) and Jacob Mitchell (Billy Bob Thornton), and Lou (Brent Briscoe) – who discover a crashed plane containing over four million dollars in cash. What follows is a tale reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” as we watch these three men and their bond unfold as they struggle to keep the money a secret from local authorities and as each of their inner demons come to the fore.

It is perhaps Raimi’s most stripped back film as far as his flashy style goes, but this still feels like a Sam Raimi picture as he expertly navigates us through the lives of the three lead characters and the unbearable weight of guilt that they all feel. This is brought to the forefront by three magnificent performances, the best of which is Billy Bob Thornton’s turn as Jacob, a shy, sensitive and innocent character whose devastating backstory not only steals the show in a beautifully written scene between he and Bill Paxton, but works as the backbone of the entire film and allows for many of the events to transpire in the way that they do.

A Simple Plan may not be Sam Raimi’s most accomplished film, but it very well may be his masterpiece. It is certainly one that is must-see for anyone who wishes to get into the director’s work.

Spider-Man (2002)

Though Sam Raimi has proven himself to be a master of the sequel with both Evil Dead 2 and Spider-Man 2 (and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, if that’s your bag), it is the first Spidey movie that really proved the director could be a major player in Hollywood and one which works as the most accessible entry point to the legend’s career.

Following the origin story of Peter Parker’s transformation into Spider-Man – bit by a radioactive spider, given superhuman powers, and now learning that with great power comes great responsibility – it may be a story that we all know by now, but Raimi’s take on the tale is irresistible. Despite his background in horror, the director’s over the top and campy style lends itself incredibly well to ripping pages out of comic books and putting them on the big screen. Not only does he capture the comic book feel that the movie requires, but he delivers to us the most perfect portrayal of Peter Parker ever put to screen in the form of Tobey Maguire. Raimi and Maguire worked together to capture the right balance of nerdy, sappy and courageous needed for the iconic part.

Though the director may have put together some excellent fight choreography, captured a wonderful lead performance, and crafted some of the most visually pleasing montages known to man (Parker coming up with costume ideas will never disappoint), it is the more sincere moments that bring to light the true filmmaking strengths behind Spider-Man. Moments such as Uncle Ben delivering iconic life lessons to Peter, Aunt May’s grief over the death of her husband, and Peter’s love for MJ. We may go into these flicks for the big action set pieces, but Raimi understands that this is a human story and one that deserves to be told with love and respect. Superhero fatigue may be setting in right now, but Raimi’s Spider-Man will never grow old. It is a perfect starting point for anyone who wishes to watch any of the director’s films.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Sam Raimi Movie Moments

Though Sam Raimi could easily be distinguished as a director of horror or superhero movies, and his contributions to both deserve to be respected, his filmography is just as unique as his style, allowing him to stand out as a true master of the craft in his own right. From campy horror films to blockbuster comic book adaptations, from sports dramas to neo-noir thrillers, Raimi’s direction behind the camera can always be felt.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @poor_and_clean

10. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Starring the incredible Aubrey Plaza, and loveable goofs Mark Duplass and Jake Johnson, Safety Not Guaranteed is a heart-warming time travel jape. While it has big names attached – including director Colin Trevorrow, who went on to steer the wheel of the Jurassic World franchise, it has a real indie charm.

It begins with an intriguing want-ad in a local Washington newspaper. Jeff (Jake Johnson), a journalist at a different paper, assembles a motley crew to investigate. While everything is set up for us to believe Kenneth (Mark Duplass) is a weirdo, and delusional at the very least, he isn’t and the film’s beauty lies in how deftly it draws the viewer to his side.

It has heart, humour and Jake Johnson. I’m not sure you need much else in a film.

9. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review

As a rule, I don’t do superheroes. DC, Marvel, I don’t really care, they’re all the same, aren’t they?

I grew up in a strange era where Val Kilmer was Batman and Lois Lane was a Desperate Housewife and the genre just never really hooked me. Then along came Miles Morales and I fell hard. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a visually stunning and standout offering in (what I and seemingly I alone feel is) a saturated market.

The Spider-verse animation is just incredible – unusual and unique. The film is brimming with detail and flashes of brilliance. I could watch it 100 times (100 more times) and notice something new with each viewing. The characters are larger than life yet somehow completely grounded and believable, and who knew the match up of Nicholas Cage and John Mulaney is what we needed in our lives? The soundtrack is perfect and the message behind it is so important.

The first time my kid saw it, she said, ‘oh so I could be spiderman’ and for that reason alone it deserves a mention in my Best Films of All Time.

Recommended for you: Spider-Man Movies Ranked

My parents nurtured my love, especially my mother whose knowledge of old movie stars seemed limitless. I started going to see movies in theaters around four years old when I saw Toy Story 2. My parents took me to see everything from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films. Nothing – not even an R rating – stopped me from watching a movie I wanted to see, and my parents quickly learned that parental controls on the TV were futile. When I was younger, my favorite movies were epic adventure movies from the late 90s and early 2000s. I went through an unfortunate Russell Crowe phase that involved repeated watches of Gladiator and Master and Commander. As I got older, I found my niche in literary adaptations, off-beat indies and the beautiful violence of Jane Campion.

In this list, you’ll find just a few of the movies that made me who I am. From fairy tales and Jane Austen to epic romances and animated classics. They are movies I watched during the formative years of my life, movies that influenced the kind of person I grew up to be. They’re movies I could watch a million times – and trust me, I have – and never, ever get bored. The movies on this list remind me of why I fell in love in the first place.

I don’t know if these are the best movies ever made, but they certainly made me. These are the 10 Best Films of all Time.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @ManicMezzo

10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

“We are what they grow beyond. That is the burden of all masters.”

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Star Wars has been a part of my life for a long time – for as long as I can remember. My fourth birthday was Star Wars-themed and my godmother dressed up as Darth Vader for the occasion, much to my horror. I was obviously thrilled when The Force Awakens was announced, but I left the theater feeling empty. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it bothered me so much. It was just missing something.

The Last Jedi has divided fans and critics for years, but for me the film is the only recent Star Wars film or television show that has made me feel something. That has made me remember why I even liked Star Wars to begin with. Rian Johnson made a film that didn’t solely rely on nostalgia, a film that wasn’t so heavily, painfully self-referential. It was trying to pave the way for the future of the franchise, not just hide in its past. The Last Jedi doesn’t do it perfectly, but I admire the effort. I admire the risk it took.

I also really love Mark Hamill’s performance in this film. I think it’s one of the best performances of his career. He was famously unhappy with Luke’s arc in this movie, and as someone who’s played his character for decades his initial feelings are understandable. But he didn’t let them affect his performance. He really gave it his all and it shows. It’s such a beautiful send-off for him and for Luke. I will always take this movie and his performance over the robotic, deepfake Luke of ‘The Mandalorian’. I will always love The Last Jedi because it gave me something real.

I’ll never get over my disappointment with how the sequel trilogy ended, but The Last Jedi will always be a reminder to me of what we could have had.

Recommended for you: Star Wars Live-Action Movies Ranked

9. Ever After (1998)

“A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where would they live?”

“Then I shall just have to build you wings!”

Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore, is a retelling of “Cinderella”, set in 16th-century France and featuring actual historical figures like King Francis and Leonardo da Vinci. It’s the kind of film you watch when you’re sad and you need something to believe in. It’s lush, romantic and funny. Ever After is on this list because it’s a love story and those have always been my favorite.

I grew up during the early 2000s when the ‘not like other girls trope’ was running rampant in media. I remember being ashamed that my favorite stories were love stories, and that I shouldn’t want to explore them. After all, girls were made for more than love and I felt like I should want more for myself.

Luckily, I grew out of that phase and now I revel, without shame, in all things romance. Ever After holds a special place in my heart because it has everything I could ever want in that department and I think it’s one of the best fairy tale adaptations of all time. There’s a sense of innate justice in Ever After, that good things happen to good people and bad people eventually get what’s coming to them, which makes me cling to this movie. Real life isn’t like this, real life is messy and unfair. But with Ever After, I can leave the real world for a bit and spend some time in a fairy tale.

Sony’s Spider-Man (2002) is unquestionably one of the forefathers of superhero cinema as we know and love it to be, and Sony’s further Spider-focused films (plus several major spin-offs) are some of the most popular and influential blockbusters of the 21st century.

In this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine are counting down each Spider-Man Universe feature-length theatrical release from worst to best, judging each inclusion by its own artistic merits, critical reception, and importance to its genre and cinema as a whole.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

13. Morbius (2022)

Morbius Review

Very little was expected of Sony’s Spider-villain-verse entry Morbius when it was revealed to be hitting our screens in 2020, but when it finally arrived after mass delays the low bar for “acceptable” superhero/villain cinema was… barely met.

Jared Leto worked hard to carve someone interesting out of a character with little by way of development, and the pacing was rapid (which is particularly impressive as a lesser Spider-Man entry), but Morbius ultimately felt like the best moments from other films thumb-tacked into a CGI mess that left said moments absent of meaning or purpose.

A lot seemed to happen in this 2022 film, yet very little gave us a reason to care for the characters, and the feature’s almost complete absence of threat only compounded this issue. It would be a stretch to claim that Morbius was trying to say anything about anything – it certainly wasn’t allegorical of past or present human issues like most vampire films, nor presenting a particularly obvious audience fantasy like other superhero movies – and it did little-to-nothing to make it look, sound or feel unique within its franchise.

Like Venom before it, Morbius was a film that seemed to be made for audiences of the mid-2000s, and yet unlike Venom it lacked all of the charisma needed to carry its more corny or less inspired moments. Even the post-credits’ mildly exciting previews of other films to come couldn’t save this one from the title of “worst Spider-Man movie”.

12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was bad. The sad, grim reality is that this Marc Webb-directed film was so badly received critically and at the box office that Sony finally caved in and brought Marvel Studios back to the table, in effect admitting their own inadequacies as regards their treatment of the character and thus sacrificing some of their multi-million-dollar profits to rival studio Disney in an attempt to fix their mistakes.

The major issue with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is its woeful screenplay, written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci of Transformers, Star Trek and The Mummy (2017) fame. In this fifth live-action franchise entry, focus shifts from a sub-par, by-the-books plot surrounding Peter Parker (and particularly his on-and-off-again relationship) to the life of his hard-working Aunt May, the reason apparently being to ensure Sally Field got her share of the run-time, the amount of space given to prominent comic book characters elsewhere in the film sacrificed as a result, the run-time dragging on to a tiresome 2 hours and 22 minutes.

Despite featuring a stellar cast including star Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Felicity Jones and Paul Giamatti, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 features some of the most ridiculous cases of over-acting in the entire franchise, every highly paid professional seemingly acknowledging the standard of movie they were in even ahead of it being released. This, mixed with a woeful narrative, worse dialogue and a Spider-Man 3 level problem of filling up the movie with characters for an expected “Spider-verse”, make The Amazing Spider-Man 2 one of this beloved franchise’s certifiably lesser releases.

11. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

A considerable improvement on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the film that preceded it, The Amazing Spider-Man, a feature that made a new-look Spider-Man franchise feel viable once again; Marc Webb’s inexperienced but grounded take on the web-slinger being refreshing enough to earn the film a number of favourable reviews and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man a number of fans.

Inevitably, the creative decision to just re-do the Peter Parker Spider-Man origin story we’d seen just 10 years prior (that’s like seeing Iron Man rebooted in 2018…) was not the smartest idea, and even though director Marc Webb and company managed to effectively avoid revisiting a lot of the tropes established in Sam Raimi’s franchise, the dye was cast for what would come to be diminishing returns for the series.

A more sarcastic, some would say millennial, take on Peter Parker was the film’s shining beacon, but the studio’s obvious hesitation to try anything entirely new was evident, this 2012 release feeling every bit as much of a part of the preceding decade as its Sam Raimi-directed brethren, only with less charm and less to offer in terms of visual awe, unique scenarios and social commentary.

The Amazing Spider-Man makes for a good, although mostly irrelevant, watch; one that does just enough to keep you engaged but never once takes a stride towards creating something special.

The Spider-Man franchise has gone through more reboots than any other comic book character since Sam Raimi first brought him to the big screen in 2002. Over that time, whoever currently fills out the spandex has faced a variety of crazed scientists, criminals and rivals brought up to Spider-Man’s level by advanced technology, superpower-bestowing industrial accidents and cunning exploitation of the hero’s secret identity.

4 iterations of Spider-Man, 10 movies, many bad guys to fight, but which were the biggest threat to him and his nearest and dearest? A web of spoilers lies ahead in this edition of Ranked from The Film Magazine: Feature Film Spider-Man Villains Ranked.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

16. Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

“I am the Rhino! I told you I’d be back!”

A Russian mobster embarrassingly foiled by Spider-Man during a heist involving an armoured truck and a lot of plutonium, Aleksei is only too happy to don a rhinoceros-shaped mech suit (like you do) gifted by Oscorp’s Special Projects division to get his own back.

Aleksei is small-time, a wannabe tough gangster shown to be humiliatingly inept in his two fights against Spidey that bookend The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The usually-excellent Paul Giamatti is outshone by his forehead tattoo and is reduced to shouting in an outrageous accent straight out of a terrible Cold War action movie as he is webbed up and pantsed in his civilian clothes and then defeated in freeze-frame in his stupid robot rhino form.

15. Harry Osborn / Green Goblin – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

“You don’t give people hope, you take it away. I’m gonna take away yours.”

Peter Parker’s childhood friend returns to New York to say goodbye to his terminally ill father and discovers he carries the same genetic blood disease that makes you grow talons and turn green. Harry discovers that Spider-Man’s altered blood may somehow offer a cure but, when the hero refuses him, he takes an untested spider venom formula that warps his body and mind, leading him to take vengeance against the Wall-Crawler.

We’re told rather than shown that Peter and Harry have a history here and expected to buy Dane DeHaan’s twitchy take on the character’s rapid physical, mental and moral decline simply because we know a Green Goblin has got to show up in this Spider-Man universe some time, somehow.

In the race to set up a Sinister Six spin-off movie that never happened, all of Harry’s characterisation seems to have been excised so we’re left with a petty arch-nemesis who meets the Webslinger precisely twice and decides to kill his girlfriend on a whim because it took him a ridiculously long time to remember his company had made a battle suit with a bodily repair function and only used it after he’d already taken the uglifying spider-formula.

14. Eddie Brock / Venom – Spider-Man 3 (2007)

“Oh! My spider-sense is tingling… if you know what I’m talking about!”

A shady and arrogant photographer and rival to Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle who gets taken over by an alien symbiote and plans to take revenge on Parker for the part he played in Brock losing his job.

Before Tom Hardy took the role down the schizophrenic antihero route, Topher Grace brought a very different version of Eddie Brock to life. First he’s just a jerk competing with Peter for a staff photographer job before his faked photos get him blacklisted. Then, coincidence of coincidences, he goes to pray at the same cathedral where Peter is trying to separate himself from the personality-altering symbiote in the bell tower above. The symbiote jumps to Eddie and he immediately goes all the way bad and hatches a plan to make Peter/Spider-Man suffer.

Very obviously a late addition to Spider-Man 3’s plot by a reluctant Sam Raimi, Venom is only really in the film for the final action scene and is a very simplistic, weirdly camp take on the character who fails to leave any real impression.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Moments from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Screenwriters: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham
Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jake Johnson, Issa Rae, Bryan Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez

After four long years, the sequel to the “electric, atmospheric festival of colour” that was Sony Pictures Animation’s Oscar-winning, genre-defining, form-shaping Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has arrived. The film that fought against a tried and tested formula, that rewrote the lore of a studio staple, that was so fresh and interesting it was almost as if it should have never existed, was such a critical success that perennial safety shooters Sony were willing to experiment once again. This time, Miles Morales and company, under the stewardship of original co-writers and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, are rewriting even more of the rule book.

Shameik Moore’s cool and relatable hero is introduced to a wider spider-verse by Hailee Steinfeld’s returning Gwen Stacy, who takes on a more central and well-rounded role in this highly-anticipated sequel. The heroine uses portal devices to cross between a multi-verse of spider-people as she and Miles experience grave family struggles. The concept of the multiverse may have been overplayed in recent years, but so rarely has it seemed this original, dynamic and brimming with life, and only in Into the Spider-Verse have the personal stakes been this high.

There are spider-people and spider-creatures galore, the cameos and more influential inclusions each being illuminated by an array of animation styles, a cornucopia of unique audio-visual elements. There are eye-widening design choices and smile-inducing casting choices, and every promise Sony’s marketing department offered in Across the Spider-Verse’s trailer is spectacularly realised.

Across the Spider-Verse is the longest animated feature in history at 2 hours and 20 minutes, but it leaves barely a moment to blink, the rapid and ever-original action slowing only to propel moments of inner conflict, interpersonal dynamics or existentialism to the forefront. Every central character is well taken care of, the beating heart that made the original so comforting and charismatic still intact – every development in Across the Spider-Verse feels at one with the film that came before. This is more than a good sequel that ramps up all that we enjoyed about the original, it is a reach into an unknown pool of perfection, a ginormous studio-backed swing at something special.

This version of Spider-Man has undergone one of the more trying coming-of-age tales of the feature film spider-people we’ve seen across various live-action franchises to date, and the connection this has forged between us and him ensures that each of his potentially multiverse-altering choices is felt from the off. Lord and Miller, who worked on the original Spider-Verse and fellow Sony Pictures Animation film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, have always given a lot of room for character choices in their texts. And, in a world of so many moving parts – characters, narratives, themes, animation styles – it is testament to their commitment to character choice that Across the Spider-Verse manages to capture the same connection as the original.

There is a short period in the middle of the film where the narrative sags a little, and certainly more could have been done to develop one of the film’s two central villains and the extent of their powers in the first half of the film – where we are left guessing as to just how much of a threat this character could be and what this might mean for Miles and Gwen – but these pitfalls are barely noticeable among the pantheon of extraordinary efforts made to excite and ignite our imaginations. In these moments, comedy, cameos, references and soundtrack take the lead, each expressively exploding out of the animation.

As an animated film, there are few contemporaries. Not since Toy Story rewrote animated feature history in the mid-90s had mainstream western animation been evolved and shunted forward with such force as in Into the Spider-Verse, and Across the Spider-Verse is somehow even more eccentric. Whether it be minutes of black and white sequences, pen lines and all, or watercolour constructions that change colour to match the conflict apparent in the dialogue, Across the Spider-Verse is an Oscar-winning short film’s unique and ultra-expressionistic sensibility attached to a mainstream intellectual property and presented by over 1,000 of the world’s best animators. It’s wondrous stuff, the kind of style that is worthy of the film’s dream-factory concept.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is why people go to the cinema. It is why you should go to the cinema. It is a phenomenon of style and substance that begs to be seen on the big screen. Lord and Miller, and their partners at Sony Pictures Animation, have once again captured lightning in a bottle. Across the Spider-Verse is ultra modern storytelling that captures the personality, fears and ambitions of our current era – it is eye-popping spectacle and hearty, moving passion side-by-side. As a sequel, we must consider this among the pantheon of greats that Spider-Man 2 (2004) belongs to, and as an animated film this is a certified all-timer. There’s no doubt that you’ll be left wanting more, but as things are… Spider-Man doesn’t get better than this.

Score: 22/24

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Even so, 2022 has proven to be the first non-pandemic year since 2017 to not enter a comic book adaptation into the billion dollar movie club, and has reportedly been tumultuous for the genre behind the scenes at almost every studio. As we press into 2023, Marvel continues its pursuit of longer form storytelling on its multitude of direct-to-streaming series and has come under criticism for building a cinematic universe in which everything must get bigger and bolder to remain satisfying to those who’ve already seen it all, while Sony succumbed to an internet meme to re-release Morbius without understanding that they were the butt of a joke, and DC most publicly of all faced scrutiny for late-in-the-year decisions regarding the future of the DC Extended Universe (now to be without Henry Cavill as Superman only weeks after his return) and a public falling out with the world’s highest paid actor, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, regarding his long-gestated DC film Black Adam.

Following 2021, a year of memorable debuts and the ultimate in superhero movie fan service, the comic book genre was forced to diversify in terms of its styles of storytelling in 2022, and as such offered everything from a David Fincher-tinged detective thriller to a horror master’s take on a superhero dealing with issues of the mind, from shallow children’s television-esque nonsense to deep ruminations on grief.

In this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine are comparing each of the 9 major superhero movie releases (not including direct-to-VoD features like Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse) in terms of their quality, their impact on our culture, their importance to the genre, and their attempts at evolving comic book adaptations beyond their previous limitations. These are the 2022 Comic Book Movies Ranked.

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9. Black Adam

For a passion project from a former professional wrestler who earned his career and reputation for being one of the most charismatic men on the planet, it was utterly nonsensical that Dwayne Johnson would play the role of a superhero completely absent of personality. The man formerly known as The Rock, who’d regularly brag about holding the “millions… and millions” in the palm of his hand, was essentially playing a narrative trigger rather than a character, a floating and invincible agent of violence who’d be better named as Mr. Anti-Charisma than the titular Black Adam; his self-serious (but not in a funny Peacemaker way), angsty and hyper-aggressive presentation proving a vacuumous presence that sucked the life out of what was already an uninspired mess of a movie.

With visuals that look like they were taken directly from a mid-2000s historical fantasy film, Black Adam was surpassed visually by even The Rock’s poorly presented Hercules (2014) and the black and blue drabness of fellow 2022 comic book release Morbius. Worse still, Black Adam himself was barely present for large periods, his role in the film taking a backseat throughout the 2nd act as a lengthy list of side characters went in their own directions, each equally as lacking in any kind of truthful essence.

With a narrative filled with conveniences and utterly illogical character decisions, a yellow hue over the entire presentation, a backstory twist that is among the most poorly presented in the history of cinema, and enough poorly generated CG-scapes to take even the most hardened of superhero moviegoers out of any given moment, Black Adam was among the worst superhero films of the decade and must certainly be considered the worst comic book film of 2022.

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In a career spanning more than forty years, Sam Raimi has inspired a passionate fanbase of gore hounds and like-minded lovers of goofy comedy served up simultaneously with scares and shocks. He is also arguably more responsible than any other film director for kicking off the current cycle of superhero cinema that dominates mega budget filmmaking to this day – Blade was arguably the test case for whether Marvel movies would truly work, but Spider-Man demonstrated what was possible if you treated comic book stories seriously and never forgot to be heartfelt.

With such a stylistically distinct and varied filmography and so many creative innovations sprinkling the course of his career, how do we even begin to rank Sam Raimi’s impressive oeuvre?

In this Movie List, we at The Film Magazine have picked just 10 of the most memorable moments from Sam Raimi’s eventful and memorable movies in order to try and sum up what kinds of things he does so much better than other filmmakers. Groovy? Groovy. These are the 10 Best Sam Raimi Movie Moments.

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10. Annie’s First Vision (The Gift)

In a town in rural Georgia, widow Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) puts food on the table for her three sons by doing readings for the locals as a fortune-teller using her family’s gift of foresight. When local socialite Jessica King (Katie Holmes) disappears in suspicious circumstances, likely involving a violent neighbour, Annie is beset by terrifying visions.

The first significant vision sees her wandering down an empty road, then through the mist-shrouded Georgia woodland, before stumbling across a disturbing revelation. It’s the balance between the creepy and the surreal that makes this sequence so memorable. Annie sleepwalks through the woods, wildflowers wither at her touch, and she bumps into a satanic fiddler (a cameo from regular collaborator Danny Elfman) playing horror movie music, before seemingly waking to see Jessica’s grisly fate: her drowned body chained and transposed above her in a tree canopy.

This scene demonstrates how little control Annie has over her blessing/curse, how she could never use her power to warn others of the manner of their end before it’s too late even if she wanted to.

9. The Windmill (Army of Darkness)

After coming agonisingly close to defeating the Deadites once and for all in the present, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) is sent tumbling into a portal that throws him six hundred years into the past. Following a brief imprisonment in the local lord’s castle, Ash is sent on a world-saving quest to find the book of the dead, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, with the promise that it contains not only a spell to banish evil but also the power to send him back to his own time. En route to his goal, Ash hides from an unstoppable evil presence pursuing him in an old windmill, where he ends up fighting many tiny mischievous versions of himself.

First Ash accidentally breaks a mirror, then his reflected images in the shards littered across the floor come to life and dozens of miniature Ashes attack with anything they can carry between them. After a ramshackle fight featuring plenty of ‘Tom and Jerry’ violence, one of the little Ashes enters him (by diving into his mouth) and eventually splits off to become a life-size evil doppelgänger for the original Ash to dispatch.

Sam Raimi had done a similar gag in Evil Dead II where Ash had to battle his own possessed hand both while it was still attached to him and after he’d amputated it, but this scene in the final film of his Evil Dead trilogy is more like a body horror “Gulliver’s Travels” and really makes the most of Bruce Campbell’s unrivalled skill at silly slapstick.

Back in 2002, Spider-Man earned the reputation of a “living comic book”, unmatched by its comic book rivals at the time. Whilst Sam Raimi did lean towards campiness and exaggeration in his trilogy, the film was made with such a deftness of touch that it avoided guilty-pleasure status and instead earned plenty of critical praise and box office dollars, becoming a cultural touchstone in the process.

In examining the career of Sam Raimi you can see how much his background helped this trilogy to succeed. Starting literally from the bottom, making Super 8 home-movies with friends from high school and then being thrust into prominence when his feature-length directorial debut The Evil Dead (1981) became a sleeper hit, Raimi has progressed from independent to blockbuster over the course of his career. His beloved horror output echoes the appeal and traits seen in his Spider-Man trilogy, illustrating his flair for melding comedy and drama, the use of light-hearted beats to underline moments of terror and suspense, and his use of insane moments of extravagance to make his movies truly unforgettable.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine we are looking back at Sam Raimi’s influential work on the original live-action Spider-Man trilogy to celebrate the unforgettable quality these films offered, choosing ten moments that best represent why this trilogy has reached immortal status. These are the 10 Best Moments from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy, chosen in terms of artistry, their significance to the trilogy, and their influence on the superhero genre as a whole.

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10. Emo Peter Parker

There is a lot of hate heaped onto the front doorstep of the third movie of the Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy. And, as fans will attest, it is largely unwarranted. Even though many of Spider-Man 3′s flaws were mostly due to interference from Sony as opposed to Raimi’s actual vision, some fans still attempt to illustrate everything wrong with this film through pointing directly at the “Emo Peter” sequence. But that’s missing the point…

The sight of venom-corrupted Peter Parker strutting down the street shooting finger guns and rolling his hips is one of the most memorable scenes in the whole trilogy. The impact of Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire on the Spider-Man mythos (and even Marvel itself) is forever immortalised by “Bully Maguire” memes, for better or for worse.

Not only is there a hidden depth and nuance to this unfairly scorned scene – it working to illustrate the inherent quality of Peter’s goodness (as an emo haircut and a “Travolta, Saturday Night Fever” walk is his idea of a “bad boy persona”) – it’s a showcase of Raimi’s inventiveness and sense of humour, which has garnered him the adoration of fans over the years. Let’s be honest, many of the haters are those who first watched this scene as a self-conscious teenager whose enormous second hand embarrassment was a projection of their own insecurities. Relevant advice to such individuals is: grow up, sit back and have a laugh. A bit of cringe never hurt anyone.

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9. Peter Fights Flash

The original Spider-Man Trilogy’s continuing moreish quality is in large part due to Tobey Maguire’s depiction of Peter Parker: he seemingly held no fear in depicting Peter as a hapless and nerdy loser, and this hasn’t quite been matched in successive adaptations.

Peter’s character is largely shaped by the relentless bullying he has undoubtedly suffered all through High School; acts that have destroyed his confidence and halted him from expressing himself. Combined with his natural goodness and teenage angst, Peter is cinema’s most sympathetic superhero, making the journey of the discovery of his powers all that more satisfying.

Peter’s fight with Flash is a near masterclass in comedy timing with Peter’s out of control web slinging throwing school dinner all over nasty school bully Flash Thompson (Joe Manganiello). Peter dodging Flash’s slow motion punches with huge bewilderment pasted all over his face is an iconic moment of superhero pop culture. And yet it’s a moment that provides more than simple laughs, it also offers awe and spectacle the likes of which we have since come to expect from the superhero genre.

Peter backflips over six feet into the air and promptly horse kicks Flash across the corridor. Raimi’s choice to use comedy as to a tool to distract and therefore maximise the impact of Peter’s powers is masterful, plus it’s really satisfying to see meek and mild Peter Parker knock out the obnoxious school bully as the first step on his journey to herodom.