6
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014)
Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) unfortunately promised to leave his girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) alone, robbing the movie of its best asset.
5
SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007)
Director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies were full of angst and tears. The final installment went from weepy to surreal with its musical interludes. But the film’s heart wins out.
4
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012)
This reboot forced the audience to watch Uncle Ben die all over again. But then-real-life couple Garfield and Stone’s chemistry buoyed the action.
3
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)
The newest entry is a joyous return to Spider-Man’s adolescence that smartly skips over Spidey’s origin story, favoring the character’s lighter side.
2
SPIDER-MAN (2002)
This Spider-Man, equal parts muscle and malaise, helped launch the modern superhero era. It offered up one of the best villains ever: Willem Dafoe’s cackling Green Goblin.
1
SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)
Raimi’s second movie focused on the human behind the mask. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco shone as graduates with growing pains. Novelist Michael Chabon helped write their whip-smart dialogue.
This appears in the July 31, 2017 issue of TIME.
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