Spider-Man Actors Ranked
With Spider-Man: Brand New Day hitting theaters and breaking several box office records, I am in the mood to talk about Spider-Man. So today I am going to be ranking all three Spider-Man actors from the worst to best. Let us get started!
NOTE: These Spider-Man actor rankings are always tricky to rank, because I do not think we have a bad Spider-Man. No matter the ranking I put in, I am not happy with it. It is tricky because there is a great take on Spider-Man vs nostalgia and balancing those out can be tricky. The actor that I have in last place, I think is great and it is just a testament to how great Spider-Man is, not the quality of the individual actors.
3. Tobey Maguire (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy): I know, I know, I know that putting Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in last place on this list is sacrilegious. I fully understand that me putting Tobey is a hot take, because he is beloved by an entire generation and he was the original live action Spider-Man, so he can have the more classic and traditional Spider-Man movie. That is the best thing about Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, it is the film that does the best job of telling the Spider-Man origins story. Garfield does the origin story, but it is a little bit darker and does several similar ideas. Holland does the origin story over the course of three films, and they incorporate the MCU characters into it. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man can do the classic source material and have the “with great power comes great responsibility” quote from Uncle Ben that shapes the origin story. One of the big stand outs of this trilogy is they make New York City feel like a character. New York City loves and views Spider-Man as an actual hero, this is most prevalent in Spider-Man 2 during the train sequence that you could only do in the early 2000s because the later you incorporate social media and it ruins what made that moment special. Another thing is that for better or for worse, this is the most awkward that Peter Parker has been. It gets a bit too over the top in Spider-Man 3 with Bully Maguire, but when he is a normal Peter Parker, you feel the awkwardness of Peter Parker well. The reason I have Tobey’s Spider-Man in last place is because I just do not have the emotional connection to Tobey as I do with Andrew and Tom. Some of that is for nostalgia purposes. But elements of the Sam Raimi films feel a little bit dated and very much early 2000s, that I think makes these films feel dated and not really my thing at points. The other thing is Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst are the weakest Spider-Man romance that we have. Maguire and Dunst have the weakest chemistry that I think holds back some of the characteristics of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. Like I said, Tobey Maguire is great and I love him in the role, but somebody must be last and today it is Tobey.
2. Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man Duology): Andrew Garfield is an interesting one to rank, because on nostalgic levels I love Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man. He is one of the definitive casting choices for me and my love of movies. The Amazing Spider-Man is the first Spider-Man movie I watched on the big screen, so I have nostalgic connections to this world and Andrew Garfield’s take on Spider-Man. Is it fair for nostalgia to overtake Spider-Man’s character arcs? Maybe not. But sometimes nostalgia trumps overall quality, and I think it does in this character’s case. I think the thing that elevates Garfield’s Spider-Man is the inclusion of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. Where Garfield and Stone have the best romantic chemistry of our Spider-Man love interests. I would love to see Garfield and Stone do another movie together that’s not Spider-Man but just a romantic comedy because they are so great together. It helps that Emma Stone is a 2x times Oscar winning actor and Garfield has been nominated for Oscars. Garfield is quippy and funny, some of the best jokes in the film are Spider-Man being quippy and talking with police officers. He can be fun and charming in certain sequences while also being dramatic especially during Gwen Stacey’s death scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I think there’s a couple of things that hold back Garfield overall. First up, his story is incomplete. He never got The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and more adventures, so his character arc stops before they get to finish it. I think when factoring in what makes a character great, there is a character arc and Andrew never got to finish him. Also, I never really bought this version of Peter Parker as nerdy. Tobey and Tom both feel like nerdy versions of the characters. Here, he seems more of a skater boy and not as nerdy and awkward as I think Peter Parker should be. I do not blame Andrew for that; I blame the script. But overall, I really do like Andrew Garfield’s take on Spider-Man while acknowledging that there’s issues with him.
1. Tom Holland (Marvel Cinematic Universe): Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is elevated based on the simple idea that we have spent the most time with him. Tobey only got three movies plus 40 minutes in No Way Home; Andrew got two movies plus 40 minutes in No Way Home. Tom has now led four Spider-Man movies, been in two Avengers movies, and had a small part in Captain America: Civil War. Tom is helped because we have spent the most time with him. Because of that, he is the Spider-Man that’s grown the most. He does not get the origin story in the classic sense the way that Tobey and Andrew did. But they changed it up and they told his origin story over the course of three films and in his third film, No Way Home is when he learns the “with great power comes great responsibility” so when that movie ends you really feel like the Spider-Man we meet in Civil War and I mean that in a positive way. You watch his appearance in the MCU, and you can see in every entry how he has grown and how the events of the past films changed the version of Spider-Man that we see in the next film. You get to Brand New Day and it is the lowest that we have seen him. After the events of No Way Home and Doctor Strange’s spell, he has lost everything that he’s loved including Aunt May, MJ, and Ned and so he’s dealing with loneliness and putting Spider-Man more front and center compared to Peter Parker. When you watch just how happy and excited he was in Civil War and Homecoming and you see this broken and more mature version in Brand New Day, you see the growth there. Beyond that, Tom Holland is just so charming and fun in this role. Where he can play the nerdy Peter Parker very well, but he can also be a fun Spider-Man that’s very quippy and jokey. Especially in Brand New Day, he has given more dramatic scenes to display his acting abilities, so he can also be the dramatic Peter Parker when he needs to be. All around, I really do think that Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man, as we have spent the most time with him and he has grown the most from earliest appearance to his most recent appearance.
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