Spider-Man 1
The original Spider-Man, which starred Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco, helped launch the modern superhero era. Equal parts muscles and malaise, Maguire’s Peter Parker perfectly embodied the overwhelmed teen. The movie set the stage for a bildungsroman that would bloom over the course of three films. It also offered up the best superhero villains to hit the silver screen, Willem Dafoe’s cackling Goblin, and one of the most famous kisses in cinematic history.
Spiderman 2
Heralded as one of the best superhero movies ever made, Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man movie focused on the human behind the mask. Spider-Man 2 strikes a balance between the teen angst of the first film and impressive special effects, with one question driving the drama: what if Peter Parker doesn’t want the great Spidey powers, or the great responsibility that comes with it?
Doc Oc (Alfred Molina) doesn’t quite measure up to the Goblin, but the rest of the plot more than compensates for Dafoe’s absence. Spider-Man 2 was the rare action film with whip-smart dialogue, likely thanks to novelist and comic book lover Michael Chabon, who helped write the film. Though TIME did not review Spider-Man 2, Roger Ebert only had nice things to say at the time: “Now this is what a superhero movie should be.”
Spiderman 3
Sam Raimi’s final Spider-Man movie surprised many with its emo musical interludes. And speaking of too many villains, this script needed to untangle the web of its conflicts: Spider-Man vs. Sandman, Spider-Man vs. Venom, Spider-Man vs. Harry, Spider-Man vs. himself.
Still, Corliss had a soft spot for the film. “To place a sensitive story in a male-epic genre — to dramatize feelings of angst and personal betrayal worthy of an Ingmar Bergman film, and then to dress them up in gaudy comic-book colors — is to pull off a smartly subversive drag show,” he wrote. And this was before we’d reached peak superhero. Spider-Man 3 stands out from contemporary superhero films like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 or Suicide Squad simply for its willingness to feel, not fight.