Sam Raimis Films, Ranked From Worst to Best | Screen Rant – Screen Rant

Following the news that he may be the new Doctor Strange 2 director, now is a good time to reflect on Sam Raimi's filmography, ranking his feature-length movies from worst to best. Its easy to overlook just how seismic an impact the works of Sam Raimi have had on modern film. His original low-budget horror titles were considered so shocking that they were originally banned in the United Kingdom following the Video Nasties scandals. Today, Raimi's horror films are beloved cult classics.

Sam Raimican also safely lay a claim to being a pioneer of the modern superhero blockbuster thanks to his work on the original Spider-Man cinematic trilogy. Outside of his own movies, he's produced various hit TV series such as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess, he's collaborated frequently with the Coen Brothers, and he helped to make Bruce Campbell a star. His movies have grossed more worldwide than those of Clint Eastwood, M. Night Shyamalan, and Joss Whedon.

RELATED: Sam Raimi Is The Perfect Director For Doctor Strange 2

Its been a while since Sam Raimi was in the spotlight. A series of hotly-hyped projects fell through and hes mostly stuck to TV, directing and producing Starzs Ash Vs. Evil Dead. Now, however, it seems that he might be ready to return to the directors chair, as rumors swirl that he is in talks to replace Scott Derrickson in Marvels Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. It would certainly be a high-profile comeback for a director who has seen his fair share of multi-million dollar hits, and it would also be one hell of a get for Marvel Studios given how much of a debt they owe to Raimi for making their work possible in the first place. Raimis decades-long career has certainly had its highs and lows; the following list is Sam Raimi's movies ranked from worst to best.

Everything about 2013s Oz the Great and Powerful feels like a phenomenal misfire on the part of both Raimi and Disney. L. Frank Baums Oz novels are timeless pieces of childrens entertainment, chock full of creativity and quietly subversive ideas as well as some exceptional female characters. It makes sense why Disney would want to put their own stamp on the Oz lore (the books are in the public domain but the iconic 1939 movie from MGM is not), but nothing about this movie feels necessary or particularly interesting.

Its hard to shake the feeling that Raimi had no investment in the source material, as everything is directed so flatly. The effects look cheap and dont evoke the vibrancy of Oz, leading man James Franco is practically sleepwalking through his performance, and the new origin story for the Wicked Witch of the West, turning her into a scorned woman, is incredibly insulting. This was a film made for branding reasons and it reeks of cynicism at every turn. Sam Raimi felt like a great choice for an Oz movie, but it seems as though his own disinterest and the studios micromanagement brought any good ideas for an adaptation to a halt.

As Raimi tried to step away from his horror routes, he made some strange career choices, but few are as truly inexplicable as his decision to make an inspirational sports drama starring Kevin Costner. For Love of the Game feels like a paint-by-numbers movie, one where every moment is highly predictable and derivative of dozens of better movies,like Costner's own Field of Dreams. The cast is impressive, and this film did introduce Raimi to future J. Jonah Jameson actor J.K. Simmons, but its a lifeless and painfully saccharine drama that strives for pathos, but delivers tranquilizers. Worst of all, its utterly boring, the worst thing a Sam Raimi movie can be.

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Every bright young director has to start somewhere. It's Murder! is Raimi's debut, shot on Super 8 while he was still at college and co-starring Bruce Campbell and Raimi's brother Ted. As the title suggests, the movie centers on a murder and the detective trying to solve the case while avoiding his own demise. Its clearly the work of a first-timer whos figuring out their style and what to do as they go along, and its charming for what it is. You can see how the Sam Raimi of 1977 evolved into the Sam Raimi who brought us Evil Dead and Spider-Man, but that would take a few years.

Following The Evil Dead and all its controversies, Raimi teamed up with his friends the Coen Brothers for a black comedy B-movie homage about a man on death row who looks back at his life to figure out what went wrong. Crimewave had a disastrous production, with Raimi not allowed to cast Bruce Campbell in the lead, bad weather and crew issues delaying shooting, and Raimi being banned by the studio from editing his own movie. Raimi cited the experience of making Crimewave as one ofhis least favorite moments of his career. Nowadays, the little-seen movie has some fans and minor cult status, but it's nowhere near Raimi's or the Coens' best work.

Everyones seen the Spider-Man 3 memes and the arguments about it being one of the worst superhero movies ever made. Its true that the film isnt very good, but its not bereft of value or interesting qualities. Raimi still manages to make room for his trademark humor and some highly satisfying moments of slapstick, plus hes always known how to execute a top-notch action scene. Spider-Man 3 mostly suffers from a case of too many cooks, with Raimi being forced to include Venom as a key villain against his wishes, and the need to go bigger than the previous film leading to a serious case of bloat. Peter Parker turning into an emo douchebag is nowhere near as awful as fans have said it is in hindsight it makes sense in context, and Tobey Maguire makes for an excellent mean-spirited Spidey but it still feels like a case of too much plot and development into an unstable structure.

Co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, inspired by stories of his own mother, The Gift sees Raimi taking on the supernatural thriller genre with good-to-mixed results. Cate Blanchett, in one of her more underrated performances, plays a psychic who is called in to help with a local disappearance involving the fiance of a local school teacher. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank, and Katie Holmes, the plotting and performances are tight and everyone is working overtime to overcome the trite clichs of the genre;however,The Gift is ultimately a tad too by-the-numbers for its own good.

In A Simple Plan,Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget Fonda, and Bill Paxton play a trio of rural Minnesota residents who discover a crashed plane with a bag containing millions of dollars on board. They decide to keep the money and not tell anyone what they uncovered, but deceit and paranoia elicit their ultimate undoing.CombiningFargo with a dash of Shallow Grave and some Southern Gothic transported to the Midwest, this sharp and often elegantly-done noir-style thriller contains some of the best Raimi film traits.

Raimi took one hell of a risk in making The Quick and the Dead in 1995. While the Western wasn't entirely dead by this point in time thanks to works like Unforgiven, it wasn't exactly something that younger audiences were desperate to see, even with a hot young rising star by the name of Leonardo DiCaprio among the cast. This proud homage to Sergio Leone is probably the most un-Raimi film in his back-catalog it is a fast-moving and highly watchable drama that delves into pure showboating with its direction and gorgeous cinematography. It's not dazzlingly original, and its initial release was probably hurt by the fact that it came out at a time when the Western was waning in popularity; however,The Quick and the Dead certainly deserves a revisit.

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Spider-Man may have been a major breakthrough for superhero movies, but 1990's Darkman was a serious risk, with Raimi directing a movie in the genre that wasn't based on a pre-existing property! Liam Neeson plays a scientist who, after being horribly disfigured by a ruthless gangster, tries to cure himself and develops superhuman abilities that he uses to fight crime. A greater Dick Tracy homage than the live-action movie that also came out in 1990, Darkman is a no-holds-barred action thriller that beautifully captures the style and graphic feel of the comic book and pulp fiction worlds. The movie did pretty well at the box office, but sadly never got a sequel this was one story audiences happily would have watched play out in an entire franchise.

Evil Dead II ends with one hell of a cliffhanger and Army of Darkness offers a rollicking story of what to do when you're a humble zombie hunter stuck in the Middle Ages. Bruce Campbell has the absolute time of his life playing the iconic Ash, who is somehow believable both as a macho hero and a ridiculous goofball parody of one. Raimi does seem to get overwhelmed by his own ambition, but an increased budget and a few more years in the game mean that Army of Darkness is easily one of his most aesthetically fascinating films, as well as one of the most enjoyable midnight movie experiencesone could hope to ask for.

What is there left to be said about 2002s Spider-Man that hasnt already been screamed from the rooftops over the past 18 years? This film shouldn't have worked: Super-hero movies were only just finding their footing in modern blockbuster cinema; the studio was unsure that anyone could believably make a man swing through the streets of New York City; Tobey Maguire wasn't an A-Lister and was mostly known for being Leonardo DiCaprio's BFF. Yet, Sam Raimi pulled it off and then some. The prototype for the modern superhero movie can be found here, from the dynamic action set-pieces, to the swells of Danny Elfman's score, to that iconic upside-down kiss in the rain.The publicknows all these tropes so well now, but at the time, this was all new.Spider-Man still has a remarkable freshness to it today because Raimi respects the source material while still having enough irreverence to put his own stamp on it. Spider-Man became the first film to pass the $100,000,000 mark in a single weekend and soon a new era of cinema was born.

It's hard to believe that 1981's The Evil Dead is only Raimi's second movie as a director. It's a sharply confident piece of work that uses its scant budget to the best of its abilities and remains timeless in its ability to scare the hell out of its audiences. Almost 40 years later, The Evil Dead is still gross, strange, exciting, and sharply shocking. Its simple story opens the doors to an unnerving mood that's hard to shake, even as the action gets kind of ridiculous (see that infamous tree rape scene.) Generations of horror filmmakers owe everything to The Evil Dead.

RELATED:Sam Raimi Has Already Worked With Kevin Feige On A Marvel Movie

After the critical disappointment of Spider-Man 3 and all the fatigue caused by studio squabbling, Raimi decided to return to his roots for his next movie, Drag Me To Hell. Raimi has never gotten enough credit for how good he is at old-school horror camp, and this film sees him turning up the volume to delightfully deafening peaks. Alison Lohman, always a criminally underrated actress who never got the credit she deserved, excels in playing a an ambitious bank loan officer whose choice to deny a mortgage extension to a strange old woman sees her cursed by a dark spirit. Making a truly scary movie is tough enough, but doing so while keeping it genuinely funny is a whole other feat of skill, and Raimi at his peak does it better than anyone else working. This is a simple movie that wants to make you jump then laugh. Drag Me To Hell is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be and it does that with aplomb.

Spider-Man may have changed the game for superhero movies, but the sequel is the realpinnacle of Raimis comic book adaptation prowess. Everything is so fine-tuned here, and Raimi is firing on all cylinders as a director, having built on the first film and become confident enough to make the sequel a more Raimi-esque feature. The effects are better, Peters arc is more satisfying, Alfred Molina as Doc Ock is easily one of the greatest comic book villains in film from the past 30 years, and the emotional beats are just incredible here, as evidenced in the scene where Spidey is carried through the train carriage by proud New Yorkers who have claimed him as one of their own. In Spider-Man 2, the fantastical and the deeply human combine with perfect balance. Dozens of superhero movies have been made since this one, but the bar was still set insanely high for a long time thanks to Raimi, Spidey, and company.

When people think of Raimi and what he does best, its Evil Dead 2 that first comes to mind, and for good reason. This blood-soaked horror with a blackly comedic heart manages to be a glorious bad taste experience while subtly satirizing the entire concept of bad taste. The best parodies come from people who love the thing theyre mocking and nobody loves this brand of horror more than Sam Raimi. Whileone could easily call this a remake of the first movie, its also definitely one of the great movie sequels, thanks to Bruce Campbells endless charisma, the ceaseless splattering gore, and the uproarious combination of blood and slapstick. Groovy.

NEXT:Sam Raimi Could Direct Spider-Man Again (In Doctor Strange 2)

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Kayleigh Donaldson is a full-time pop culture and film writer from Scotland. A features contributor to Screen Rant, her work can also be found regularly on Pajiba and SYFY FANGRRLS. She also co-hosts The Hollywood Read podcast. Her favorite topics include star studies, classic Hollywood, box office analysis, industry gossip, and caring way too much about the Oscars. She can mostly be found on Twitter at @Ceilidhann.

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Sam Raimis Films, Ranked From Worst to Best | Screen Rant - Screen Rant

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