With SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY swinging into theaters soon, Movieguide® decided to rank every live-action and animated SPIDER-MAN movie by its Family Content score — the number Movieguide® assigns based on moral worldview, language, violence and other content concerns.
“The movie SPIDER-MAN is not only well-constructed, exciting and entertaining, but it is chock full of faith, much to our surprise,” Movieguide®’s original 2002 review said, and that faith-forward legacy set a bar the franchise has chased ever since.
Ten movies, 10 scores, one clear pattern: the earliest Sam Raimi movies soar above everything that came after, while the more recent multiverse-hopping entries have drifted further from the overtly Christian content that made Peter Parker’s story special in the first place.
1. SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004) — Family Content: +2
Movieguide® called it “terrifically entertaining, with lots of action and amazing special effects, plus a few unexpected plot twists.” Sam Raimi’s sequel juggles Peter’s crumbling personal life with Doc Ock’s rampage and still finds room for real moral weight.
Two years after the first movie, Peter struggles to balance being Spider-Man with holding down a job, keeping up his grades and staying close to M.J. and Aunt May. His problems worsen once brilliant scientist Otto Octavius fuses with four mechanical arms after a fusion experiment goes catastrophically wrong, turning him into the villainous Doc Ock. Raimi’s sequel is widely regarded as one of the best superhero movies ever made, and its elevated-train fight remains a genre high-water mark.
SPIDER-MAN 2 earned roughly $788 million worldwide against a $200 million budget, making it 2004’s second-highest-grossing movie behind SHREK 2. It’s actually the lowest-grossing movie of Raimi’s trilogy, proof that a smaller box office haul doesn’t necessarily mean a lesser movie.
2. SPIDER-MAN (2002) — Family Content: +1
This one earns its spot thanks largely to Aunt May’s Lord’s Prayer scene and repeated “Thank God for you, Peter” lines threaded through the action. Uncle Ben’s dying words, “with great power comes great responsibility,” still anchor the whole franchise.
Peter Parker is a shy, bullied high schooler until a genetically engineered spider bite gives him extraordinary powers and a personal tragedy convinces him to use them to protect others rather than himself. Raimi’s origin story pits Peter against Norman Osborn, whose Green Goblin persona threatens everyone Peter loves, including Mary Jane Watson. It set the template every Spider-Man movie since has had to live up to.
SPIDER-MAN shattered box office records on release, becoming the first movie to cross $100 million in a single opening weekend. It went on to earn more than $822 million worldwide against a $139 million budget, finishing as the third-highest-grossing movie of 2002 and the highest-grossing superhero movie ever released up to that point.
A six-way tie for the middle of the pack follows, with SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, SPIDER-MAN 3, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 and SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME all landing at -1.
3. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) — Family Content: -1
Movieguide® described it as carrying a “very strong, pro-family Christian, moral worldview,” including a scene set near a church and cemetery.
Miles Morales, a Brooklyn teenager, gets bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Man in his own universe just as crime boss Kingpin’s machine starts pulling other Spider-People in from across the multiverse. Miles teams up with an older, disillusioned Peter Parker and four other Spider-heroes to stop Kingpin from unraveling reality itself. The movie’s groundbreaking comic-book animation style set a new visual standard for the genre.
INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE opened to a modest $35 million but built strong word of mouth through the holidays, eventually earning around $384 million worldwide against a $90 million budget. It also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, cementing it as one of the most acclaimed Spider-Man movies ever made, even though it’s the lowest-grossing of the 10.
4. SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (2023) — Family Content: -1
Related: BRAND NEW DAY Returns Tom Holland’s Peter Parker to His Roots
Movieguide® praised its “strong, heartfelt pro-family worldview,” including an image of a family holding hands and praying before a meal, though the outlet flagged a brief pro-LGBT poster glimpsed in the background.
Miles Morales runs into a multiversal Spider-Society trying to stop a new villain called The Spot, but Miles finds himself at odds with the group’s leader over how to handle a coming crisis that threatens someone he loves. The sequel expands its predecessor’s multiverse concept dramatically, introducing hundreds of alternate Spider-People rendered in distinct animation styles. It ends on a cliffhanger heading into the franchise’s next chapter, BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE.
ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE nearly doubled its predecessor’s box office, earning around $690 million worldwide against a $100 million budget. It became Sony Pictures Animation’s highest-grossing release ever and the sixth-highest-grossing movie of 2023.
5. SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) — Family Content: -1
SPIDER-MAN 3 closes out Raimi’s trilogy with overt references to the Cross and answered prayer, which Movieguide® said combine to “reinforce the movie’s Christian themes of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, compassion, and faith.”
Peter Parker is riding high on public adoration as Spider-Man until an alien symbiote turns his suit black and amplifies his darkest impulses, just as Sandman and a vengeful Harry Osborn, now a new Green Goblin, threaten everyone he loves. The movie juggles three villains at once, which many critics said stretched the story thin compared to Raimi’s first two entries. Even so, its final act leans hard into overtly Christian imagery of the Cross, forgiveness and redemption.
Despite mixed reviews, SPIDER-MAN 3 was the biggest box office hit of Raimi’s trilogy, earning around $890 million worldwide against a $258 million budget. It held the record as the highest-grossing Spider-Man movie for years until Tom Holland’s era eventually surpassed it.
6. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012) — Family Content: -1
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN reboot kept strong moral content intact even as the overt Christian references from the Raimi trilogy faded.
This reboot follows a teenage Peter Parker investigating his parents’ disappearance, which leads him to Dr. Curt Connors, his father’s former research partner, who transforms into the monstrous Lizard. Andrew Garfield’s take on Peter leans darker and more mature than Tobey Maguire’s, with less humor but a stronger emphasis on Peter’s search for identity. The movie kept the franchise’s moral core intact even as its faith content faded.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN opened strong and finished as the seventh-highest-grossing movie of 2012, earning about $758 million worldwide against a $230 million budget. It was a solid, if unspectacular, start for a rebooted franchise that Sony hoped would rival Marvel’s Avengers.
7. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014) — Family Content: -1
Movieguide® called it “one of the cleanest superhero movies made in recent years,” crediting its positive father-son subplot and Spider-Man’s habit of urging villains to turn away from evil.
Peter Parker juggles his relationship with Gwen Stacy and his lingering anger at his father’s abandonment while facing off against Electro, an unstable electrical supervillain, and a childhood friend turned enemy. The sequel leans further into romance and mythology-building for future spinoffs that never materialized. Despite Sony’s hopes of launching an Avengers-style shared universe, the plot’s juggling act left many critics calling it overstuffed.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 earned roughly $708 million worldwide against a reported $200 to $293 million budget, a noticeable dip from its predecessor. The underwhelming result led Sony to abandon its spin-off plans and strike a new deal bringing Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe instead.
8. SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (2019) — Family Content: -1
FAR FROM HOME earned credit for a pro-life message and characters who “thank God” amid a plot about deception and fake news.
Peter Parker wants a normal European school trip and a chance to tell MJ how he feels, but Nick Fury pulls him into a mission against seemingly otherworldly Elemental monsters alongside the mysterious Mysterio. A midpoint twist reveals Mysterio’s true motives, forcing Peter to fight alone against a manipulator weaponizing fake news and illusion. The story doubles as an emotional epilogue to AVENGERS: ENDGAME, with Peter grappling with the loss of his mentor, Tony Stark.
FAR FROM HOME became the first Spider-Man movie to cross $1 billion worldwide, ultimately earning about $1.13 billion against a $160 million budget. It also became Sony Pictures’ highest-grossing movie of all time at the point of its release, a record Spider-Man himself would break again two years later.
Bringing up the rear are SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING and SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, both scoring -2.
9. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017) — Family Content: -2
Movieguide® flagged “some strong paganism, including a reference to Hinduism,” alongside crass humor in HOMECOMING, a movie the outlet otherwise praised for Tom Holland’s performance.
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker balances high school life in Queens with his eagerness to prove himself to Tony Stark, sneaking out nightly to stop petty crime until he stumbles onto Vulture’s black-market weapons operation built from salvaged alien technology. The movie leans heavily into teen-comedy territory, with Peter’s friendships and school life getting as much screen time as his heroics. Michael Keaton’s morally complicated Vulture, a family man turned criminal, became one of the more nuanced villains in the franchise.
HOMECOMING grossed about $881 million worldwide, making it the second-most-successful Spider-Man movie at the time of its release. It set the stage for two sequels and helped fully integrate Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
10. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (2021) — Family Content: -2
NO WAY HOME brought three generations of Spider-Men together for a genuinely redemptive story about second chances, but Movieguide® noted “many light obscenities and profanities, intense action violence and occult content” that kept the multiverse mashup from climbing higher on the list.
After Mysterio exposes his identity, Peter Parker asks Doctor Strange to cast a spell making the world forget he’s Spider-Man, but the spell backfires and pulls in villains — and eventually heroes — from across the multiverse, including Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men. The movie leans on the redemptive idea that even supervillains deserve a second chance, a theme Aunt May champions before her death late in the story. It became a genuine cultural event, reuniting three generations of Spider-Man actors on screen for the first time.
NO WAY HOME shattered records, grossing nearly $1.9 billion worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing movie in North American history and one of the highest-grossing movies ever worldwide. It became the only movie to cross $1 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic, cementing Spider-Man’s standing as one of Hollywood’s most bankable characters.
Taken together, the ranking tells a familiar story for longtime Movieguide® readers: the more explicitly the franchise leans into faith, the higher it scores, and the more it leans into multiverse mythology, crude jokes and occult trappings, the more caution families need. That’s worth keeping in mind as Tom Holland swings back into theaters for BRAND NEW DAY, a movie that will inevitably face the same test.
Whether Sony and Marvel can recapture the “God Speed, Peter” spirit of the Raimi years remains to be seen. Families heading to see BRAND NEW DAY would do well to check Movieguide®’s review first — and maybe rewatch SPIDER-MAN 2 while they wait.
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