2. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
We all know that with great power comes great responsibility, and Spider-Man 2 is the best embodiment of that founding ethos. Constantly torn between balancing his personal and superhero lives, Tobey Maguire’s version of Peter Parker has to constantly make the hard choice to protect New York at the expense of just about everything in his life. Raimi’s smash sequel dives deeper into this tension, resulting in a brilliant story that’s made all the better by an empathic turn from Alfred Molina as a doomed Doctor Octopus. Spider-Man 2 contains one iconic sequence after another, culminating in Peter’s heroic and Herculean efforts to save a runaway train that perfectly emulates why he’s the best of the best. Live-action superhero films are rarely better than this.
