Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy is leaving Netflix, and it's never felt more relevant

It's also incredibly romantic

Superheroes are forever. While the collective’s obsession with the topic ebbs and flows, these stories have existed in some form or another for hundreds of years. This week is a big one for superhero fans; Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out, with many anxiously awaiting to see if the movie will provide the necessary reassurance for Marvel, proving that there’s a future for the genre. While Marvel is not what it used to be and likely won’t ever recapture the magic of its golden years, superheroes are forever, and these stories will always have a home somewhere.

We’re not here to talk about Spider-Man: Brand New Day or the superhero genre as a whole, however. We’re here to talk about a trilogy that had a huge influence on the past 25 years of cinema. In 2002, Sam Raimi took over the Spider-Man franchise and delivered a film that shattered box office records and revitalized a stalled genre. It also became one of the most romantic blockbuster trilogies of all time. All three of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies are leaving Netflix on Aug. 5, so you need to rewatch them ASAP.

Before Spider-Man, Raimi was a cult horror auteur. While he’d directed actors like Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, and Frances McDormand in genre films that have since been mostly forgotten, he was known for the Evil Dead franchise. His credits made him a curious fit for a superhero character for kids, but the result was magical.

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is good and kind, almost to a fault. As Spider-Man, he’s so busy saving New York that he barely has time to make ends meet, holding multiple jobs like delivering pizzas and underpaid freelance photography for The Daily Bugle. The New York he inhabits is harsh and fully realized, with people reacting to Spider-Man’s presence in ways that no superhero film has managed to portray since. Then there are the set pieces: throughout the three Spider-Man movies, regardless of their dips in quality (re: Spider-Man 3), Raimi allows his horror genius to shine. Through his tenure, he crafted one of the scariest villains of all time in Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, a character so gripping that Spider-Man: No Way Home had to repurpose him.

Still, what stands in sharpest relief is the attention to the trilogy’s central love story. It’s proof that Raimi is not only a great horror filmmaker, but also a great realist and a romantic at heart. In Raimi’s films, Peter and MJ (Kirsten Dunst) dance around each other for the better part of their lives. Not only were they in high school together; they were also neighbors, with Peter getting to see the crack in MJ’s popular girl facade at home. As she moves through boyfriends and jobs, her friendship with Peter remains one of the anchors of her life, growing all the more complicated when he can’t commit to their romance. Initially, he does this to keep her safe from Spider-Man’s enemies, but he can’t tell her that, so he has to suffer through the sacrifice himself.

While Peter’s life is carefully constructed, from his sweet yet strained relationship with his aunt to his dilapidated New York shoebox apartment, the attention to MJ as a character is worth noting. She has strengths, weaknesses, and desires of her own. Yes, she jumps from bad boyfriend to bad boyfriend, but she’s also kind and warm. Romance aside, MJ remains a good friend to Peter even when he doesn’t deserve it.

She’s also relentless in her pursuit of becoming an actress. Throughout the trilogy, she experiences it all: her big acting debut in a Broadway play, heartbreak when she can’t find another job, and rock bottom when she winds up singing at a crappy bar. Her arc is a reflection of Raimi’s skill in crafting a world that’s as real as our own despite the heroes and villains being hurled off of skyscrapers. By the end of Spider-Man 3, it’s easy to picture the life that MJ and Peter will have together; one filled with struggles and compromises, yet with the reassurance that they will always be there for each other.

Nothing encapsulates the strength of their dynamic and its great writing better than their iconic first kiss. “For me it was a great love story, with a real human being at the center,” Raimi told Rotten Tomatoes in 2019.

The scene shows Spider-Man and MJ in the pouring rain, with him hanging upside down from a web. It comes early in their dynamic, before their romance, after Spider-Man has rescued her a few times, with MJ not knowing his real identity. MJ pulls down his mask, exposing the lower half of his face, and kisses him. It’s a carefully choreographed moment that remains the indelible image of Raimi’s trilogy. “Pulling down the mask makes the moment special because this character longs to be loved by her. And to remove the mask is exposing yourself to becoming vulnerable with someone who loves you,” Raimi said.

It’s a romantic legacy that no superhero movie has come close to evoking. And while the Spider-Man franchise retains some pretty good love stories in all of its iterations, nothing really lands with the same impact as Maguire’s Peter and Dunst’s MJ. The Amazing Spider-Man opted out of MJ altogether, introducing a Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) that was sweet and romantic. She and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker had electric chemistry that spilled offscreen as the actors dated. Gwen’s death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is one of the most tragic moments in superhero movie history, but it essentially ended Garfield’s tenure. Tom Holland's Spider-Man brought back MJ (Zendaya), but only in the final minutes of Spider-Man: Homecoming, after spending the entire film with a decoy love interest (Laura Harrier). It's a decision that focused on novelty rather than authenticity. And for all the chemistry that Holland and Zendaya bring to the screen, it's a dynamic that's heavily impacted by their real-life relationship. You can't say it's a romance built entirely on the characters as written.

As the superhero genre goes through this period of change, it would be helpful to revisit its earlier iterations and how they operated. We’ve seen origin stories a million times by now, but we’ve forgotten the importance of real characters. Web swinging is amazing, and so is seeing some of our favorite heroes and villains come alive on screen. But what’s greater than finding a connection that accepts you through your worst and stands the test of time?

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is streaming on Netflix through Aug. 5.