All 3 Sam Raimi Spider-Man Movies, Ranked

The superhero movie genre changed forever as a result of the release of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, which officially brought the world of Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics into the mainstream. While Blade had been a hit as an R-Rated action film and X-Men appealed to niche comic book readers, Spider-Man became one of the biggest films of 2002, proving that superhero stories were there to stay. Although development on an official Spider-Man film had taken many years, with various creative teams involved, Raimi had the foresight to make a brightly colored, optimistic version of the iconic webslinger that captured the sense of fun that was evident in Lee’s original material. It also came down to brilliant casting; Tobey Maguire captured the geeky charisma of Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst embodied the “girl next door” archetype that Mary Jane Watson represented, and J.K. Simmons felt lifted directly from the panels of a comic book with his role as J. Jonah Jameson.