Spider-Man 2

Raimi's Peter Parker is proof that he is truly the only director who truly gets Spider-Man. At the heart of Marvel's most important comic book series isn't some unattainable superhuman. Peter Parker is just a boy from Queens trying to survive day to day. He's an average New Yorker. He lives in a crappy apartment, struggling to pay his bills. His rent is always late. His social life is non-existent, and his work life is overwhelming. Always tired, always late, just trying his best. Spider-Man 2 spends a lot of time with Peter outside of the costume, dealing with the choices between responsibility and the desire to be free. There's a sort of sincerity in this that movies seem to have lost. Especially in the MCU, where the franchise has become a sort of assembly-line process that repeats the same story structure, cinematography, and humor ad nauseam, it's nice to go back to a time when a filmmaker was allowed to have his own vision. The Raimi trilogy can be cheesy. Its dialogue is often very saccharine. It's a series that wears its heart on its sleeve an isn't afraid to just be what it is. Spider-Man 2 perfectly exemplifies that sincerity. I wish we could go back to it.