All 6 Sony Spider-Man Villain Movies, Ranked

In 1999, Marvel sold the rights to "Spider-Man" to Sony Pictures for a staggeringly low $7 million, and it continues to be one of the smartest acquisitions any studio has ever invested in. The lucrative deal has essentially put Sony in a position of power where they could simultaneously partner with Marvel Studios for the Tom Holland entries, while still developing their own non-Marvel Cinematic Universe related Spidey projects. But just because they have that great power doesn't mean they always use it responsibly. For every "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," there's a "Morbius" morbin' not far behind, and the latter is often the result of Sony's alt-universe spin-off movies of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.

Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), which hilariously used to go by Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters (SPUMC), was always going to face an uphill battle considering none of them actually featured the beloved webhead himself. In spite initial plans to expand the Andrew Garfield "Amazing Spider-Man" universe crashing and burning, Sony still followed through with a series of villain movies that felt like relics of the pre-superhero movie boom.

While the SSU is technically still alive with the "Spider-Noir" television show, the critical and commercial failure of 2024's "Kraven the Hunter" was the straw that broke the camel's back. As it stands, there are currently six "Spider-Man" spin-off movies in the SSU, so let's rank them and see which of these flawed endeavors left the best impression.

Whereas a lot of SSU movies possess some semblance of entertainment value, "Kraven the Hunter" is perfectly content in being a complete non-starter. After playing Quicksilver in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Aaron Taylor-Johnson returns to the world of Marvel as Sergei "Kraven" Kravinoff, an animal-loving vigilante who hunts international criminals for their evil deeds. Following a childhood lion attack that leaves him horribly injured, Kraven is administered a healing serum that partially transforms him into a superhuman being with animalistic qualities. Learning that his crime lord father Nikolai (Russell Crowe) killed said lion informs his antihero crusade, and Kraven is roped into a terribly uninteresting plot involving reuniting with his former friend Calypso (Ariana DeBose), rescuing his younger brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), and facing off against mercenary Aleksei Sytsevich aka the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola).

With Kraven divorced from his comic book counterpart who enjoys hunting people for sport, what you're left with is a flat action movie archetype with virtually no charisma. Taylor-Johnson's got all of these complicated stories to juggle, but they're trapped in an anemic movie hardly interested in its own existence. Nivola's take on the Rhino somehow makes Paul Giamatti's derided performance in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" look inspired, embodying the Marvel villain as a laughably bad human-animal hybrid.

Marred by abysmal ADR, murky CG landscapes, and an ensemble who couldn't look more bored, J.C. Chandor's "Kraven the Hunter" is easily one of the worst Marvel movies to date.

With the success of the prior two "Venom" films came the opportunity to explore other monsters in the Marvel universe, but "Morbius" all but dashed that momentum by hiring an actual monster. In addition to being about a comic book character that casual moviegoers knew nothing about, the casting of alleged sexual predator Jared Leto in the title role was a major turn-off. He plays Dr. Micheal Morbius, a biochemist with a rare blood disease who's dedicated his life to combating it. The breakthroughs of his artificial substitute compels him to push even further for an all-out cure that potentially lies in the genes of Costa Rican vampire bats. This goes about as well as you would imagine, turning the doctor into a super-powered bloodthirsty vampire.

"Morbius" became meme fodder from the moment it dropped its first trailer and sadly, the film itself didn't help. This is a tedious comic book movie with awful pacing and a placid performance at the center. Despite playing a super-powered vampire, Leto never looks like he's having any fun. Jared Harris, Adria Arjona, and Tyrese Gibson all look lost trying to figure out their place in this soulless venture. The "Morbius" MVP, however, is Matt Smith as Micheal's adoptive brother Milo aka Lucien, whose resentment for gatekeeping the cure to their shared blood disease leads him to take it for himself. Those few sequences of him vamping out are almost worth sitting through the movie. 

Almost is the key word here.

If there's a success story to be found in the SSU, it's Venom earning his own trilogy. "Venom: The Last Dance" is by far the weakest of the three Tom Hardy Venom movies, stuck in a tug-of-war between three movies fighting for relevancy. In the wake of their blink-and-you-miss-it multiversal vacation in "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Eddie Brock (Hardy) and symbiote Venom (also Hardy) return to resume their lives as fugitives. Among those trying to capture the pair is Imperium, a top secret government program tasked with seizing other symbiotes that have fallen to Earth. There's also the matter of extraterrestrial hunters called Xenophages that have been tasked by symbiote creator Knull (Andy Serkis) to retrieve the host-reviving codex within Venom, which possess the capabilities to set him free. 

It all becomes way too much for one movie. "The Last Dance" is at its best when Eddie and his alien boyfriend are left alone to partake in their road-trip comedy, with one of the highlights being a shared dance with beloved shopkeeper Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu). Unfortunately, any burst of energy comes to a grinding halt whenever Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, and their dull crew of government scientists crash the party. To make matters worse, the film's overstuffed screenplay has to serve the whims of a boring space antagonist in a chair who leaves no impact. At least "The Last Dance" ends on a touching note of finality that honors Hardy's commitment to the role.

Making with a Venom movie without Spider-Man felt like a miscalculation from just about every angle. But while the Ruben Fleischer-directed supervillain spin-off has its share of flaws, the concept is ultimately saved by Tom Hardy's insane dual performance. Here, Eddie Brock is a San Francisco-based investigative journalist looking into the shady practices of a bio-engineering company. His prying, however, leads to both him losing his job and engagement to Anne (Michelle Williams). Months later, Eddie receives a tip that leads him to discover that the company is using people as human lab rats to experiment with alien symbiotes. One going by the name Venom forcibly latches itself onto Eddie with the intent of sowing chaos, but is convinced to use their shared tether against bad people.

"Venom" suffers from a lot of generic superhero movie tropes, namely with Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake transforming into a boring grey reflection of the central antihero. But the film soars whenever Hardy take the wheel. There's such an immediately lovable chaos to his deep-throated Venom making Eddie perform these death-defying feats, and then poking fun of him for not being able to handle them. Even the symbiote's physical appearance, with its inky black tendrils, razor sharp teeth, and protracted tongue, straddles the line of intimidating and goofy that works in its favor. It's no wonder the Eddie-Venom coupling sustained the SSU for as long as it did.

The thing with movies is that you'll often come across some that can't be easily deemed good or bad and belong in a weird middle ground, as is the case with "Madame Web." After New York paramedic Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) nearly drowns, she experiences psychic premonitions of future events. One day on the subway, she envisions a man killing three teenage girls, Anya (Isabela Merced), Julia (Sydney Sweeney), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor). That man turns out to be wealthy explorer  Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who believes the teens will kill him after becoming super-powered Spider Women. Through her abilities to see into the future and never open the Pepsi cans she has in her hands, Cassy attempts to keep them alive.

"Madame Web" is a uniquely memorable disaster that doesn't make a lick of sense, features some of the worst ADR in any 21st century tentpole, and teases you with a superhero team that never gets their powers by the end. In spite of everything, it's a consistently baffling cult classic that ends up being a campy good time.  A large part of that is due to Johnson's incredible performance that doubles as professional disassociation. She knows exactly what she's in, and every choice she makes, such as watching "A Christmas Carol" in the middle of the summer, is worthy of academic study. It's hard to predict the future, but there's no doubt this serves as one of the crown jewels of the SSU.

All the lulls in the first "Venom" are nowhere to be found in the deeply entertaining sequel "Let There Be Carnage." It fulfills the promise of an MCU alternative that's unconcerned with ties to a broader universe, but rather, indulging in its own infectious manic energy. In it, Eddie Brock has been granted access to a rare interview with Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), an imprisoned redheaded serial killer. After Eddie and Venom deduce where he buried his victims, Cletus is sentenced to death by lethal injection, but not before getting a nibble in. This results in Cletus inadvertently bonding with a meaner red symbiote named Carnage who helps him and his institutionalized girlfriend Frances aka Shriek (Naomie Harris) escape.

The Carnage mayhem is incredibly fun on account of Harrelson's over-the-top performance. But what makes "Let There Be Carnage" great is the evolution of Eddie and Venom. The film acts as a stealth relationship comedy between a sad journalist and his lonely alien boyfriend who just wants to be seen. Venom even has a "coming out" declaration at a neon-drenched rave surrounded by a bunch of queer folks — something you'll never see in a Marvel Studios production. 

"Let There Be Carnage" isn't without well-earned drama though, putting Eddie and Venom in a place where their ultimate reconciliation comes with consequences. Director Andy Serkis' refreshingly earnest take in emulating those late '90s comic book offshoots unquestionably puts it at the top of the SSU.