Release Year: 2002

Genre: Action, Romance

Director: Sam Raimi

Writer: David Koepp

Stars: Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco

Celebs: they're just like us.

And the same goes for superheroes…or, at least, for Spider-Man.

He's not an alien like Superman or a crazy-rich tech whiz like the Caped Crusader. He's not whatever Arm-Fall-Off Boy is. And he's certainly not a genius science guru like Iron Man.

Instead, he's a likeable nerd who gets bitten by a spider. He's a good kid who wants to make his aunt and uncle proud. He's a high schooler in love with his next-door neighbor.

In other words, he's normal. And therein lies the noble, dorky charm of Spider-Man…and the film, uncreatively titled Spider-Man.

The plot is local kid making good, but with a twist.

Here's what goes down: Peter Parker gets bitten on the hand by a genetically engineered spider on a school field trip and wakes up with superpowers. He can crawl up walls. He can sense danger before it happens. He can shoot webs out of his wrists. Best field trip ever? Probably.

Before Peter can figure out a way to leverage these skills into fame and fortune (or, at least, a circus career), Peter's hometown of New York City is besieged by the Green Goblin, a powerful, spiteful, thoroughly maniacal supervillain intent on wreaking havoc—and only Peter, as his alter ego Spider-Man, can stop him.

Spider-Man swung into American cinemas on May 3rd, 2002, kicking off the summer blockbuster season. The film was a massive hit, raking in $114,844,116 in its opening weekend. It would go on to gross $403,706,375 domestically and a whopping $821,708,551 worldwide. Adjusted for inflation, it's the 38th most successful film domestically at the box office as of this writing (source). It was also honored with two Oscar noms: one for best sound and one for best visual effects.

Director Sam Raimi would go on to make two more Spider-Man movies, and leading man Tobey Maguire would became a bona fide action star after beating out a who's who of young Hollywood actors for the titular role—a list that was rumored to include front-runner Heath Ledger and eventual co-star James Franco, as well as Jude Law, Chris O'Donnell, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. (source).

And we think that's for the best. After all, can you picture either of the dudes from I Know What You Did Last Summer as Spider-Man? Yeah, us neither.

Spider-Man isn't the gelled hair and smoldering Tiger Beat pin-up type. Behind that mask is a thoroughly average Joe—and that's precisely what we love about him.

Spider-Man isn't just a comic-book movie—it's the comic-book movie…or, at least, the one that ushered in the 21st-century wave of superhero cinema.

Sure, superhero movies existed before Spider-Man. And a few, like Superman (1978), Batman (1989), and X-Men (2000), were even critical and commercial successes. But the terrible truth is that most were terrible. (We're looking at you, infamous '90s Fantastic Four.)

And probably because these movies pretty much ranged from "meh" to "oh, dear Lord, turn that off," the whole genre was viewed as B-movie schlock.

Then came Marvel Studios' Spider-Man.

Marvel reinvented the comic-book movie, and they did it by giving just as much focus to Peter Parker as they did to Spider-Man. At its core, Spider-Man is a movie about a relatable teenage social outcast…just one that's imbued with superpowers. You come for the web slinging, and you stay because its main character is three-dimensional and engaging.

You bet this was a game changer.

Once the American public decided that watching Peter Parker's trials and tribulations made for awesome cinema, the characterization of superheroes and villains shot through the roof. Case in point? Well, a mere six years after Spidey swung around NYC, Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for best supporting actor for his knockout performance as the dynamic Joker in The Dark Knight.

We're not saying that Spider-Man should get all the credit for ushering in a new era of frankly excellent superhero movies. But it did change the way superhero stories are told and understood.

In the simplest terms, it added heart.

And that heart made it possible for people to say things like, "Hey, you want to see the new Kenneth Branagh film? No, it's not another Shakespeare adaptation. It's called Thor."