How to watch the Spider-Man movies in order (release and chronological)

This guide provides a comprehensive watch order for all Spider-Man movies, spanning multiple timelines and franchises, including Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, Venom, Morbius and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, offering insights into the complex connections between Sony's Spider-Verse and the MCU.

Knowing how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order isn't exactly common knowledge. With multiple Spider-Men appearing on the big screen, clashes between Sony's universe and the Marvel timeline, and all the branching out films like Venom and Morbius, any watch order has become all the more tangled.

That's a lot of wall-crawling, and with the release of Venom 3 (titled Venom: The Last Dance), you may be dreading rewatching all the best Spider-Man movies again. However, if you don't know where to start, then you have come to the right place. Below, we break down exactly how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order, splitting the order into sections. We start with Tobey Maguire's trilogy, Andrew Garfield's duo of movies, and then Holland's films. If you want to do a true deep dive into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we also have a separate guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order. 

But, MCU aside for now, this page also breaks down Hardy's Venom movies, and Morbius, which similarly takes place in Sony's separate Spider-Man universe (don't worry, we'll explain all). Plus, though it's an animation, we've thrown Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse into the mix!

There are multiple timelines and franchises to get through when we talk about the Spider-Man movies. However, before we get into breaking down each timeline, an easy way to grasp Spidey's cinematic history is to watch all the superhero movies in order of release. In fact, it's probably the easiest watch to get to grips with everything since we rarely see the different films clashing with one another - until we get to more recent entries (kicking off with Tom Holland's outing as Peter Parker).  

Tobey Maguire appears in three of his own Spider-Man movies. Released between 2002 and 2007, the trilogy – directed by Sam Raimi – marked the first major big-screen appearance from Spider-Man, and in the process, the movies broke box-office records. These are simply some of the best superhero movies ever released and introduced us to all the classic components of the Spider-Man story. 

A fair warning: the first two Spider-Man movies are excellent, mainly thanks to their villains: Green Goblin and Doc Ock. However, Spider-Man 3 is one of the worst Spider-Man movies ever made, thanks to being overloaded with villains – Sandman, a new Green Goblin, and Topher Grace's Venom – and the plot just generally being a mess. 

It's not one to skip, though, as there are just so many excellent memes. If you laugh along, you'll be just fine.

Andrew Garfield drew the short straw when it came to his time playing Spider-Man. The actor is excellent as Peter Parker, yet the movies' plots are both too tangly for their own good. The first one has its moments, but the second really can be a slog. However, as with Spider-Man 3, there's no getting around watching it, and the defining moment in Garfield's time as Peter takes place near the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Just ignore the setup for The Sinister Six that never came to be.

Thinking of not watching the other Spider-Man movies? Think again! Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker skips the character's outright origins story, with Marvel and Sony presuming that you've probably already seen Pete being bitten by a radioactive spider in the Maguire and Garfield movies. However, Holland's Parker is younger and more naive than the other two incarnations, and we see the character living out his high-school life. There's a lot of fun to be had.

However, things get complicated with No Way Home. You're going to want to have watched absolutely everything above to fully appreciate what's going on in Spider-Man: No Way Home. That's because that movie brings together a bunch of characters from Maguire and Garfield's movies, and you're also going to want to watch the Venom movies, too. Director Jon Watt's conclusion to the Homecoming trilogy sees the multiverse being ripped apart and characters from all across the Spider-Verse being dragged into the MCU. It's a massive cross-over movie, and you'll thank yourself for taking the time to watch the other Spider-Man movies before seeing this.

The Venom movies are part of Sony's ever-growing Spider-Verse, and become almost inexplicably linked to the wider Spider-Man movies later on. To fully understand Spider-Man: No Way Home, and later Morbius, you're going to want to watch these two all the way through and make sure to catch the Venom 2 post-credits scene.

Recently, Venom: The Last Dance was released, and from its post-credit scene (read our Venom 3 ending explained guide for more on that), we know that the door is still slightly open for a future MCU cross-over. We also know that from the best Venom comics, that our favorite symbiote has a ton more stories to tell. So, fingers crossed, we can add more movies to this watchlist in the future as well. 

When we talk about Sony's Spider-Verse, we are talking about the other movies that exist alongside Venom and Spider-Man. In this case, it's Morbius and Madame Web. In the case of Morbius, as revealed in the trailers, the movie brings back Michael Keaton's Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming but also takes place in a completely separate universe from Holland's movies. That means Morbius is not in the MCU but has an MCU character in it.

Morbius, for the most part, works as a completely separate movie from all the others on this list, minus Venom, who gets a namecheck. That is, until the Morbius post-credits scene, where it suddenly becomes entangled with all of Holland's movies, including Spider-Man: No Way Home. Essentially, Morbius adds to the intriguing puzzle and links between the MCU and Sony's Spider-Man movies. It can be enjoyed on its own but will be better received if watched as part of the entire Spider-Man journey. 

These two are outliers – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel are our picks for the best Spider-Man movies, yet they don't fall neatly into the watch order. These are animated movies, which don't share any plot threads with any other movie in this guide. Like Venom, the first film was released in late 2018 and can be watched in between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame if you want. But really, this can be watched at any stage in your Spider-Man run-through. It also introduces the concept of the multiverse in a very straightforward way, which may be helpful for No Way Home, though not necessary as there is no crossover.

And that's how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order. That's a lot of web-slinging! For more, check out our guides on how to watch the X-Men movies in order and how to watch the DC movies in order.