The 12 Most Influential Superhero Movies Ever Made

Spider-Man (2002)

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man is a vital step in the superhero genre’s evolution. It may have arrived a few years after the trail-blazing Blade and X-Men, but the wall-crawler’s silver screen debut is no less impactful.

The advancement of CGI didn’t simply allow Spider-Man’s powers to come to life, as with Wolverine and Cyclops’ abilities in X-Men. Instead, it heightened the spectacle, allowing audiences to feel as if they were swooping through concrete canyons alongside the hero and seeing New York from his perspective.

With its heart firmly on its sleeve, Peter Parker’s heroic journey is told in broad and spectacular strokes, and it is, in many ways, the 2000’s equivalent of Richard Donner’s Superman. Moreover, Raimi’s film has proved so sturdy that, when the franchise was twice rebooted, each version has had to work very hard to step out of its shadow.

This dynamic tale of “power and responsibility” was intensely popular with cinemagoers, too. When those box office numbers came in, Hollywood was inspired to invest millions of dollars in superheroes again.