One of the few superheroes that can honestly rival the popularity of icons like Batman and Superman, Spider-Man has enjoyed a shorter but no less successful run of live-action movies through various iterations of the character in a relatively short space of time.
With a huge fanbase containing various perspectives on the movies, it can be hard for a newcomer to quickly ascertain which movies are considered to be the best and which are considered to be the worst. With this in mind, let's look at every live-action movie to feature the character so far along with their score on review aggregate site Metacritic to paint a clearer picture of how critics have responded to the hero's cinematic outings.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (53)
Bringing up the rear is the final attempt made, so far, by Sony to produce a Spider-Man movie outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that fact speaks the loudest for its overall quality.
The movie went through a famously wasteful shooting and editing process wherein numerous major plot threads were dropped or altered for various reasons, the end product becoming inconsistent and unsatisfying.
Spider-Man 3 (59)
Sam Raimi's final Spider-Man movie before the series was rebooted with Andrew Garfield in the lead role, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would also replicate.
Whilst still successful at the box office, the end of the original trilogy was lowly ranked by both critics and fans along with a slew of sequels from that time period that grossly disappointed in relation to their preceding movies (X-Men: The Last Stand, Shrek the Third, etc.)
The Amazing Spider-Man (66)
Andrew Garfield's first crack at the character following the negative fan reaction to Spider-Man 3 was a solid hit with both critics and audiences and led fans to believe that the actor's tenure as the superhero could be quite long-lived.
Essentially telling the same origin story of the original Spider-Man with a slightly different visual aesthetic, The Amazing Spider-Man left a lot of promising room for development on ideas that would, sadly, never come to fruition.
Avengers: Infinity War (68)
Spider-Man's first proper Avengers movie would see the character team up with his mentor in the MCU, Iron Man, and travel to space to fight with Doctor Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Proving that there's still tons of potential for the character outside of both New York and our solar system, Infinity War showed that the character still shines just as brightly even in the biggest ensemble movie produced at that time.
Spider-Man: Far From Home (69)
The latest live-action Spider-Man movie to date follows directly on from the huge events of the fourth Avengers movie and sees the character adjusting to their new world and their position as one of the main heroes within it.
Taking the character on a school trip across Europe that's complicated by espionage missions involving fan-favorite characters Far From Home offered another breezy hit from Marvel Studios whilst setting the groundwork for the hero's most ambitious movie appearance yet in the future.
Spider-Man (73)
Sam Raimi's original movie, along with the first X-Men movie released almost two years prior, is often credited as the project that kickstarted the contemporary wave of superhero blockbusters in the 21st century, ultimately resulting in the MCU and all its imitators.
Providing first cinematic origin story for the character, Spider-Man was perhaps the first superhero movie since Tim Burton's Batman to demonstrate that the idiosyncrasies of a distinct director could not only survive but thrive in modern studio tentpole filmmaking.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (73)
Sharing a score of 73 out of 100 with Sam Raimi's original movie, but just inching it out with a sample size of 51 reviews to 38, Spider-Man's first solo movie in the MCU was met with high praise indeed from critics.
An almost aggressive John Hughes vibe runs throughout Homecoming and establishes the studios' take on their mascot character as typically upbeat without skimping on the compelling villainy from veteran superhero movie actor Michael Keaton.
Captain America: Civil War (75)
The third Captain America movie in the MCU introduced the universe's iteration of Spider-Man, much to fans' delight, and set up his solo debut in the franchise with Homecoming.
Tieing the character very heavily to Iron Man, the story doesn't feature the web-slinging hero for very long but it's ensured that they leave a big impact on the audience.
Avengers: Endgame (78)
The grand finale if the MCU's Infinity Saga, Avengers: Endgame brought a number of major characters' story arcs to a satisfying close while setting up other heroes to take the lead in the future.
Spider-Man is presented as one of the biggest faces to head the MCU in the future, with Far From Home following the movie to great success at the box office only months later.
Spider-Man 2 (83)
Sam Raimi's original sequel is often floated by fans as not just perhaps the best superhero movie sequel of all time but perhaps the best superhero movie of all time also.
Focussing on plot threads remaining from the first movie and Spider-Man's famous nemesis Spider-Man 2 remains one of the highest-rated Marvel movie adaptations of all time as well as the top Spider-Man movie, by Metacritic's calculations.
