No. 1
Evil Dead II 1987
No. 1, no argument. A profound movie made in a profoundly goofy way — basically a remake of the first film with higher-concept gags, a bigger Bruce Campbell performance, and no compromise anywhere in it.
The Big Picture · Rankings · Interview
‘Spider-Man,’ ‘The Evil Dead,’ and the Sam Raimi Rankings
May 3, 2022/ 96 min/ Sean Fennessy · Adam Naiman
Sean and Adam Naiman rank all fifteen Sam Raimi movies worst to best, then Sean talks with Tom Gormican about writing and directing 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.'
17 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The Sam Raimi Rankingsworst to best
No. 2
A Simple Plan 1998
No. 2. The most ‘movie’ movie Raimi ever made — a neo-noir about two brothers and a bag of cash that plays like the missing link between Fargo and No Country for Old Men. Bill Paxton, not Oscar-nominated costar Billy Bob Thornton, is the real find.
No. 3
Darkman 1990
No. 3. A wronged-man revenge movie more than an actual superhero movie, made cheap and shot like real comic-book panels instead of a screensaver. Frances McDormand and Liam Neeson are both terrific.
No. 4
Drag Me to Hell 2009
No. 4. Disgusting and funny in equal measure, and mean without an R rating. The movie Raimi cashed his Spider-Man chip in to make.
No. 5
Spider-Man 2 2004
No. 5. The Doc Ock surgery scene is a genuine Hitchcock/William Castle homage smuggled into a studio superhero movie, and Alfred Molina makes a potentially ridiculous villain work — Marvel is still drawing on that character today.
No. 6
Army of Darkness 1992
No. 6. Moves the Evil Dead films to the Middle Ages and Monty Pythons them, with Ray Harryhausen-style visual references. Bruce Campbell is the whole movie, and it's a one-liner factory.
No. 7
The Evil Dead 1981
No. 7. Scrappy, lo-fi horror made on nothing, comparable to The Thing as a viewing experience despite a fraction of the budget.
No. 8
Spider-Man 2002
No. 8. Buoyant rather than apocalyptic — just people who love or hate each other in New York, with stakes that don't hinge on a giant glowing cube. The one that opened the floodgates for the entire superhero genre.
No. 9
The Gift 2000
No. 9. A serious, atmospheric movie about a mystic with ESP, anchored by Cate Blanchett before she was a known name in America, with Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, and Katie Holmes filling out the cast.
No. 10
The Quick and the Dead 1995
No. 10. A revisionist, slapstick Western with a stacked cast — Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, a 21-year-old Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio getting the ampersand billing. Structured like an actual gunfight tournament bracket.
No. 11
Crime Wave 1985
No. 11. The one Raimi made with the Coen brothers that all three have disavowed — an uncategorizable, weirdly retro genre parody that doesn't fully work but has real heart in it.
No. 12
For Love of the Game 1999
No. 12. A syrupy, sentimental baseball movie that doesn't work: Kevin Costner and the ballgame are good, the romance is not.
No. 13
It's Murder! 1977
Tied at No. 13. Neither host has actually seen Raimi's first short — grouped here with Within the Woods as the early, prove-yourself work of a young independent filmmaker.
No. 14
Within the Woods 1978
Tied at No. 13. The 32-minute proof-of-concept short that got The Evil Dead financed — a little boring at that length, but the primal scene of Raimi's whole career.
No. 15
Spider-Man 3 2007
No. 14. Too many ideas and too many villains (Sandman, Venom), overstuffed and overlong, and it loses the focus on Peter and Mary Jane that made the first two work. The theater was dead when it played.
No. 16
Oz the Great and Powerful 2013
No. 15, the worst. High production value that still looks bad — built more around an aspect-ratio gimmick than a real reason to exist, and unlike Tim Burton doing this kind of thing yearly, Raimi only swung at it once.
In conversation
Tom Gormican on
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent 2022
Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten wrote the entire script before Nicolas Cage had agreed to anything, hoping just to get a lunch out of it. Cage said no at first; a letter about the breadth of his career — Moonstruck to Con Air to Adaptation — brought him around.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Raimi's horror lineage, in passing Blood SimpleThe Hudsucker ProxyThe Vast of NightThe ThingThe Texas Chain Saw MassacreNight of the Living DeadLast House on the LeftThe ShiningThe ShadowThe PhantomBatman
The Oz comparisons The Wizard of OzWild at Heart
Spider-Man's superhero-movie context BladeX-MenIron ManSpider-Man: No Way HomeThe Dark Knight
A Simple Plan's neo-noir cousins FargoNo Country for Old MenSling Blade
The Quick and the Dead cast, elsewhere CasinoVirtuosityApollo 13TwisterDraft Day
The reason for this episode Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Nicolas Cage's back catalog, mentioned in passing MoonstruckRaising ArizonaCon AirFace/OffAdaptationMandyEverything Everywhere All at Once
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Ash vs Evil DeadGhosted
Podcasts Blank Check
Theater Wicked
Ads Boar's HeadNetflix (FIFA World Cup game)White ClawQuakerBotoxSam's Club