Disney Plus is now considered the de facto streaming service for comic book fans, but Netflix isn’t giving up the fight and just confirmed it will be offering arguably the best superhero trilogy of all time from next month.
The streamer took to Twitter to confirm that from Monday, August 1, the Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy will be available on Netflix. Comprised of 2002’s Spider-Man, 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and 2007’s Spider-Man 3, all three movies were directed by the legendary Sam Raimi and are still beloved to this day.
He said our Spider-Man trilogy is coming to Netflix on August 1! pic.twitter.com/EaRPNRp3uNJuly 19, 2022
The original Spider-Man, along with 2000’s X-Men, basically kicked-started the comic book movie craze that dominates the movie industry to this day. It’s no exaggeration to say that without them we probably wouldn’t have the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it.
It may have turned 20 this year but Spider-Man still holds up remarkably well. Tobey Maguire is the perfect Peter Parker, and Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn/Green Golbin is the ideal blend of sinister and ridiculousness that you’d want from the character. There are some dated effects, but these are easy to overlook when the film gets so much right.
Its sequel, Spider-Man 2, makes a serious claim to be the greatest superhero movie of all time, and we comfortably ranked it as the best Spider-Man movie last year. Everything comes together perfectly in Spider-Man 2 from the speculator action sequences to its tragic villain, Dr. Otto Octavius. The subplot that looks at the toll being Spider-Man takes on Parker’s life is especially well done.
The final piece of the trilogy, Spider-Man 3, is definitely the weakness, and upon release, it received mostly negative reviews. Time has been kinder to the overly ambitious flick but it still suffers from trying to cram too much into a single film. Not to mention some casting choices don’t really work (Sorry, Topher Grace) and the tone is a little too cheesy. It does have its moments, however, and the climactic final showdown is thrilling in all the right ways.
Of course, we can’t talk about the Raimi Trilogy without mentioning its biggest impact on pop culture: Memes. Each film is stuffed with shots, scenes and lines that have been woven into internet culture over the last two decades. From Norman Osborne declaring “I’m something of a scientist myself” to Parker's bizarre strut down the streets of Manhattan! Even if you’ve not seen any of the films in the trilogy before, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll recognize several moments — Netflix even announced the film hitting the service via a meme from the trilogy.
Once you’ve watched the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy you can follow it up with The Amazing Spider-Man, which is also available on Netflix. Unfortunately, if you want to watch the latest Spider-Man trilogy starring Tom Holland you need to find alternative means (such as Starz). While none of them are streaming on Netflix at present, there is some good news, Spider-Man: No Way Home just landed on a streaming service for the first time.
