My son, Julian James Kenney, wrote this list in a frenzy after watching GHOST RIDER this weekend. Caveat: He hasn’t seen some key titles, but he’s also seen some deep cuts some of you might have missed! He wrote a biography for a story he’s working on with a friend, so I’ll reuse that to introduce him to you if you (somehow) don’t already know this troublemaker:
Don’t worry, I forced the poor boy to watch SONS OF THE DESERT, the original PLANET OF THE APES, ROMAN HOLIDAY, JAWS, THEY ALL LAUGHED, a bunch of Harryhousen movies, etc, in his impressionable single digits, even LOCAL HERO (!), but he still managed to see all this superhero nonsense nonetheless. So here are his ranking of the thirty-two superhero films he has seen, with no censorship or hectoring from me:
#32 SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT
“So this version kinda poops on the theatrical cut…”
#31 CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
“Too fast to keep track of anything.”
#30 SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE
“Fun, but also forgettable and lame.”
#29 DOCTOR STRANGE
“The action scenes are the ONLY good thing.”
#28 RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING
“Forgot this existed, but it’s NOT a dumpster fire!”
#27 THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
“Why did we need this reboot after the Sam Raimi films?”
#26 BATMAN VS DRACULA
“Just ehhh…”
#25 SUPERMAN III
“Makes Superman not really the main character…”
#24 BATMAN AND ROBIN
“Underrated, but still not great.”
#23 BATMAN (Adam West movie)
“SUPER UNPLEASING ENDING!!!”
#22 SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
“A decent first movie for the MCU Spider-man.”
#21 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
“Better action than the first one.”
#20 SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME
“A lot of fun!”
#19 BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS
“Good homage to the 60s show.”
#18 BATMAN VS TWO-FACE
“A new villain added to the Batman ’66 world, Two-Face was never in it (until this film).”
#17 SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
“A lot of fun, a great way of showing different types of Spider-man, I love the Noir Spider-man.”
#16 ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL
“Don’t get this classic serial confused with the 2019 movie; this old one is good for killing time, with lots of kind of violent deaths my dad did not expect me to see, but it was too late.”
#15 BLACK PANTHER
“Great action!”
#14 CAPTAIN AMERICA (Albert Pyun version)
“A cool look at Cap’s origin.”
#13 SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE
“A great take on Superman. Christopher Reeve is the best Superman.”
#12 AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
“Heartbreaking…in a good way.”
#11 THOR: RAGNAROK
“Hilarious and a must-see!”
#10 GHOST RIDER
“Great in all categories, although maybe special effects are a little outdated.”
#9 BATMAN FOREVER
“FUN!”
#8 BATMAN
“A nice look at Batman.”
#7 SUPERMAN II (Richard Lester theatrical cut)
“All out awesomeness!”
#6 BATMAN RETURNS
“DARK.”
#5 BATMAN BEGINS
“Awesome AND great!”
#4, #3, #2 (A TIE!) SAM RAIMI’S SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN 2, & SPIDER-MAN 3
“These movies are great!”
#1 THE DARK KNIGHT
“Would anything else go here!?!”
If you want to follow this knucklehead’s YouTube channel, here’s the link:
Tremble...Sigh...Wonder... 