In an age dominated by superheroes, the best of these movies are on Disney+. The streamer has all the MCU films, meaning you can watch many superhero movies there.
If you’re trying to narrow in on a single movie that’s worth your time, though, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the best movie to start with. The film, which is a sequel to 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, isn’t part of the MCU but is nonetheless one of the more inventive superhero movies ever made. Following Miles Morales in the aftermath of the first film, we see him learn about an entire multiverse filled with spider-people and also come to understand just how much he wants to forge his own path. Here are three reasons you should check it out:
It’s absolutely stunning to look at
Perhaps the most important reason to check out Across the Spider-Verse is to witness the stunning visual achievement. The movie’s animation changes style as its characters move between various universes inside of their multiverse, and the animation also means that shots can be expressive of their characters’ internal lives.
Gwen Stacey’s watercolor-inflected universe is beautiful, but every spot the characters visit in this movie is a visual feast, so much so that if you pause any random frame, there’ll be a dozen fascinating things to look at.
It features an utterly relentless plot
Although Across the Spider-Verse is fairly long at two hours and 20 minutes, the film moves at a pretty relentless clip. We follow Miles as he reunites with Gwen. Miles learns that Spider-People from all over the universe are collaborating to prevent breaches between universes, and then Miles decides to write his own story.
It’s a remarkably linear film that nevertheless seems to know where it’s going and has a firm handle on its central characters and how they relate to one another.
It’s referential in all the best ways
Much like Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse is referential to the rest of the Spider-Man universe without being obnoxious about it. It’s a movie about what it means to love Spider-Man that nevertheless acknowledges all the ways loving a character can lead you to reject anyone trying to do something new with it.
Few movies understand the appeal of a character as well as this one does, even as Across the Spider-Verse dares us to ask whether any character should ever be forced to stay the same for decades and decades.
Stream Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Disney+.