The Best Superhero Movie Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes Is Still Streaming On Netflix

Rotten Tomatoes provides an interesting perspective on that debate, particularly through its ranking of the greatest movies ever made. While superhero films have occasionally struggled to receive the same critical recognition as other genres, several comic-book adaptations have earned exceptional reviews, proving that colorful costumes and action sequences can coexist with sophisticated storytelling and ambitious filmmaking.

One particular release has managed to outperform every other superhero movie on Rotten Tomatoes' all-time list, placing it among some of cinema's most celebrated productions. It also happens to be an Academy Award winner, a visually groundbreaking blockbuster, and a film that remains readily accessible to streaming audiences. Released in 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has a very convincing claim to being the greatest superhero movie ever made.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Is The Highest-Placed Superhero Movie On RT's Best Movies List

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse currently occupies the 48th position on Rotten Tomatoes' 300 Best Movies of All Time list, making it the highest-ranked superhero movie in the ranking. This is particularly impressive considering the competition, with the list featuring celebrated classics like The Godfather, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, and Rear Window. It also places the animated adventure ahead of several major superhero releases, including The Dark Knight, Black Panther, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Into the Spider-Verse has a 97% Tomatometer score, based on critics' reviews, and a 93% Popcornmeter score from audiences. Importantly, Rotten Tomatoes' overall ranking considers audience approval, the number of reviews and user ratings, and release year, alongside an editorial assessment. This is why films with perfect Tomatometer scores don't automatically occupy the top positions.

Why Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Is An All-Time Great Superhero Movie

Into the Spider-Verse follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn teenager who unexpectedly develops spider-like abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider. His introduction to the responsibilities of being Spider-Man comes at a particularly difficult moment, as Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber) attempts to use a particle accelerator to access parallel dimensions.

The experiment brings several alternate versions of Spider-Man into Miles' world, including Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). This premise allowed Into the Spider-Verse to explore the character's mythology without simply repeating Peter Parker's familiar origin story.

Miles is an inexperienced teenager struggling with expectations from his family, particularly his police officer father, Jefferson Davis (Brian Tyree Henry), and his own uncertainty about whether he's capable of becoming Spider-Man. His relationship with his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) adds a very emotional complication, especially when Miles discovers the truth about his uncle's criminal activities.

Into the Spider-Verse's greatest achievement, however, is its extraordinary animation. It combines different visual techniques to recreate the appearance of a living comic book, with halftone patterns, hand-drawn effects, deliberately irregular frame rates and speech bubbles.

The relationship between Miles and Peter B. Parker provides much of the humor, but their partnership also explores the different ways people respond to failure and responsibility. Peter initially treats his involvement as another unwelcome complication. Watching him rediscover his sense of purpose through mentoring Miles gives the film a satisfying emotional foundation.

It is a superhero origin story that feels genuinely fresh without abandoning the qualities that made Spider-Man such an enduring character. Its Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was thoroughly deserved.

Is Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse The BEST Superhero Movie Ever?

There is a very convincing argument that Into the Spider-Verse is the greatest superhero movie ever. Its combination of innovative animation, carefully developed characters, genuinely funny dialogue, and emotional storytelling makes it an unusually complete superhero film. It also understands something fundamental about the genre that’s so often overlooked: the superhero identity is only meaningful when audiences care about the person underneath the costume.

Nevertheless, Rotten Tomatoes' ranking shouldn't be mistaken for an indisputable verdict. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008), for example, remains an equally compelling candidate. With a 94% Tomatometer score and 94% audience score, the Batman sequel offers a more grounded examination of superhero mythology, using Gotham's escalating violence to explore morality, institutional corruption, and the consequences of trying to impose order on chaos.

Other contenders deserve consideration, too. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004) is one of the strongest explorations of the personal sacrifices involved in being a superhero, while James Mangold's Logan (2017) uses the genre to tell a brutally effective story about aging, mortality, and redemption. Ultimately, the answer depends on what audiences want from superhero cinema.

The Dark Knight might be the more accomplished crime thriller, but Logan offers a more mature character study. However, Into the Spider-Verse arguably achieves the greatest balance between spectacle, emotional depth, humor, and the imaginative possibilities of comic-book storytelling. Its position at the top of Rotten Tomatoes' superhero rankings is certainly justified.

What The Future Looks Like For The Spider-Verse

The success of Into the Spider-Verse led to a sprawling franchise, with 2023's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse expanding the mythology considerably. Miles’s story is scheduled to conclude in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which is expected in June 2027. Its premise follows Miles as he attempts to escape the Spider Society and return to his family, who are now caught up in the consequences of his multiversal adventures.

There are also plans to explore other corners of the franchise. A Spider-Punk feature is in development, with Daniel Kaluuya, who voiced Hobie Brown in Across the Spider-Verse, developing and co-writing the screenplay with Ajon Singh. The character's anarchic personality and distinctive punk-rock aesthetic make him an ideal candidate for a standalone adventure.

A Spider-Women spin-off has also been reported, with a Gwen Stacy-centered story expected to introduce Cindy Moon, AKA Silk, and Jessica Drew, the Spider-Woman. However, its development status and release plans remain less clear than those of the third animated film.

For now, the immediate priority is bringing Miles' animated journey to a satisfying conclusion. Given the ambition of the previous two films, expectations for the trilogy's finale are understandably high. Fortunately, audiences can revisit the adventure that started it all, with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse now streaming on Netflix.