Which Spider-Man Movies Can You Skip Before No Way Home?

The inclusion of prior Spider-Man characters in Spider-Man: No Way Home makes the question of what to skip and what to re-watch harder. That’s on top of the fact that director Jon Watts’ third installment in the Homecoming trilogy is just a small part of the 20-plus-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is interconnected enough that many of its past entries are now required viewing. No Way Home is finally launching the MCU firmly into the multiverse though, and with that comes the potential to tie in past movies not even made by Marvel Studios.

Thankfully, unless Spider-Man: No Way Home is hiding within it the biggest bombshell reveals in the history of the MCU, it’s unlikely anyone will need to worry about catching up on things like the Wesley Snipes Blade films, or the Fantastic Four movies released in the mid-2000s. The real concern is the high number of previous Spider-Man movies, since it has already been confirmed that characters from both of Sony’s pre-MCU Spider-Man franchises are set to appear in the upcoming blockbuster.

For a thorough understanding of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man timeline prior to the new film, one needs to watch (or re-watch) every MCU movie the wall-crawler has appeared in, in addition to all five Spider-Man movies Sony made before their partnership with the modern, Disney-owned Marvel Studios. For most people, however, finding the time to rewatch all of these films ahead of No Way Home‘s release probably isn’t realistic. The leanest route to take while still getting mostly up to speed is to re-watch Spider-Man: Far From Home, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and finally The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

As mentioned previously, the only way to make absolutely sure one will recall every character and bit of information needed to understand Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s sprawling multiverse plot is to re-watch everything—including Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, as well as Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man. For those looking for a quicker route though, the above four-movie path offers a good compromise that doesn’t require catching up on 10 different 2-hour-plus movies before No Way Home arrives in theaters.

Since Spider-Man doesn’t have an origin story movie in the MCU, it’s fairly safe to skip Civil War and Homecoming, since the dynamic between Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and his friends is pretty easy to grasp from just watching them interact in Far From Home, the second entry in the series. Far From Home is required viewing due to its ending leading directly into No Way Home, but also offers a path around revisiting Infinity War and Endgame, since it offers multiple expository references to those events. Raimi’s first two Spider-Man movies are necessary due to both Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus looking to play big roles in No Way Home, plus it provides a backstory for Tobey Maguire’s Peter should he show up.

Outside of the return of The Sandman, which hasn’t been promoted heavily, it’s doubtful Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 will be referenced much, considering its generally poor reputation and status as meme-worthy laughingstock. While The Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man is returning, he hasn’t been featured in the marketing, and that movie repeats Spider-Man’s origin in a way very similar to what Raimi did—just not nearly as well. That makes The Amazing Spider-Man expendable, and pretty easily skippable. However, due to the considerable presence of Jamie Foxx’s Electro in marketing, and the need to revisit at least one of Andrew Garfield’s movies should Garfield’s Spider-Man appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 should be re-watched.

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