A Complete Ranking of Every Delightfully Twisted (and Often Super Gross) Sam Raimi Movie

You can probably figure out from the title that Oz the Great and Powerful is related to The Wizard of Oz. You’re right! Raimi’s last feature film for 9 years was this prequel showing the titular character in his early days. James Franco stars in a very random role. Far from the most Sam Raimi movie on this list, it’s still worth a watch to see how this director once again tries to shift his skillset into a different box.

Stream It Here

Coming between his first and second Evil Dead installments, even Raimi himself would admit that Crimewave is kind of a mess. Co-written with a couple guys you may have heard of (Joel and Ethan Coen), Crimewave had the right ingredients to be good, including—surprise, surprise—a cast led by Bruce Campbell. But studio meddling (Raimi was removed from the process at a certain point) made this one to forget (and probably one the director doesn’t think back too fondly on either).

Stream It Here

Once he’d established himself as a master of horror/comedy/mind-bending camp, Raimi took his talents to all different kinds of movies, showing that he could be more than just the genre guy. One of those movies was For Love of the Game, one of Kevin Costner’s many baseball movies. A fun cast that also includes John C. Reilly, Brian Cox, J.K. Simmons, and the late Kelly Preston make this a perfectly solid sports flick.

Stream It Here

Gonna be completely honest: the only context in which I had ever initially heard of The Gift (a different movie from the 2015 thriller starring Jason Bateman) was as the movie that Rosenberg and Goldstein are watching in comedy classic Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. But it’s a Sam Raimi thriller, a murder mystery centered on a woman with ESP, with a pretty fun stacked cast: Keanu Reeves, Cate Blanchett, Katie Holmes, and Hillary Swank. It’s not one of the director’s best or one of his signature films, but it’s certainly worth a watch if you’re bored and looking for some thrills.

Stream It Here

I know, I know. Spider-Man 3 is, without question, the weakest of Raimi’s web-slinger trilogy. Still: it’s not that bad. If you just accept that the movie is more toward Raimi’s camp tendencies (and less earnest than his first two franchise installments) you can really start to appreciate it. The much-discussed emo/dancing sequence has become the internet’s favorite meme (and was immortalized in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Perhaps the hottest take? Topher Grace’s Eddie Brock, while different from other depictions, is well done; he’s a great foil to Maguire’s Peter Parker. Of course, once he becomes Venom it makes no sense. And we don’t even need to talk about the total snore that is Sandman. Still: fun movie.

Stream It Here

A big fan of comic books, Sam Raimi really wanted to make a superhero movie. But he couldn’t get the rights to one of his favorites, so he did what anyone else would do: created his own. The result, then, was Darkman; this movie is weird, twisted, campy, and fun in a lot of ways. Liam Neeson plays the main character, a scientist who becomes horribly disfigured only to gain all sorts of special abilities. Darkman is far from a perfect movie, but it’s easy to watch and realize that this movie—that came out in 1990—had all sorts of influence on superhero things that we’ve seen in the last 15 years or so.

Stream It Here

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a dream come true for fans of just about everything he does well: this movie has got the strong characters, it’s got the frazzled camera work, it’s got the superheroes, and boy oh boy does it have the horror. Raimi takes advantage of audiences already knowing and caring about Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch (among notable others), and sends them on a journey that only he could send them on. Marvel promised a horror movie in the Multiverse of Madness marketing, and it delivered.

Stream It Here

Sam Raimi made a western? Sam Raimi made a western! The director brings his one-of-a-kind style to a different genre. and it works pretty darn well. The movie is anchored with a great cast of actors doing things they do well: Sharon Stone as our hero, Gene Hackman as a corrupt lawman, and Leonardo DiCaprio as a young gunslinger with a mean streak.

Stream It Here

The Evil Dead is the first feature film in Raimi’s career, and the first in his storied Evil Dead franchise. And while it’s a fun, campy movie that really lets you see the beginnings of what would become his signature style, it’s also the weakest of his three Evil Dead directorial effort. There are so many fun kills, and gnarly practical effects moments, and classic horror formula, too. And knowing how low the budget was, it’s fun to see all sorts of little workarounds that barely anyone would ever think to notice. The movie is fun! But Raimi and his leading man—Bruce Campbell, of course—would learn from this experience and make even more beautiful zombie music down the line.

Stream It Here

Raimi had worked with Joel and Ethan Coen a couple times before (on Crimewave and also on their film The Hudsucker Proxy, notably), so it makes sense that his movie A Simple Plan feels like a post-Fargo entry in the film canon. This Neo-Noir is Neo-Noir not in the way you probably expect; it’s not about a hard-boiled detective solving a mystery, but rather a Macguffin-filled adventure that finds three guys (led by brothers played by Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton) who find a whole lot of money—and go to some pretty extreme lengths to keep it. This is probably Raimi’s most restrained movie, and he handles it well—just don’t expect any of his signature horror-based flourishes.

Stream It Here

Are you a fan of Sam Raimi’s movies? Sam Raimi’s Movies? The wild ones? The gross ones? If your answer to these questions is yes, then Send Help is the movie for you. Rachel McAdams leads our proceedings as Linda Liddle, a hard-working, long-suffering woman in corporate America who gets passed over for a promotion she was promised when her dickhead new boss, Bradley, (Dylan O’Brien) decides he wants to give it to one of his old frat buddies instead. Things change quite a bit when a business trip flight hits a snag and Linda and Bradley wind up stranded on an island somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Nepo baby Bradley has zero skills, but Linda is a Survivor superfan—and suddenly, their dynamic is changed. Send Help is filled with shocking violence, great performances from both McAdams and O’Brien, and very campy humor (the movie comes from the writers of Freddy vs. Jason). In all? It’s a pretty perfect Sam Raimi movie. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for the next one.

Buy Tickets Here

The third movie in the Evil Dead franchise finds its charismatic leading man transported back to the medieval age, and allows star Bruce Campbell to lean fully into both his action hero and comedy star bonafides. This about as fun as horror/comedy gets, and there are certainly points in this movie where you begin to wonder why Bruce Campbell didn’t have a career more similar to Jim Carrey’s. A great watch, and one that could put anyone (well, anyone with a bit of a stomach for campy horror) in a good mood.

Stream It Here

Evil Dead II is kind of a remake ofThe Evil Dead. Confusing? Yes. But it doesn’t matter—just watch, and you’ll know exactly what we mean. Bruce Campbell returns as Ash for what would become the defining film in the Evil Dead franchise; one where Raimi and Cambpell would find the perfect mix of camp, scares, and humor. That sort of genre-bending is exactly what we love about this series (and for anyone looking for more horror: Raimi and Campbell made a series, Ash vs. Evil Dead, for Starz that lasted three seasons).

Stream It Here

Drag Me To Hell was marketed as Sam Raimi’s “return to his horror roots” after the conclusion of his Spider-Man trilogy with Spider-Man 3. But with increased budgets, more modern effects and filmmaking technology, and a wholly committed cast, Drag Me To Hell turned out to be—wait for it—Raimi’s very best horror movie. A thrilling story from start to finish with some deeply hilarious moments, this is one of the most underrated horror movies of all time.

Stream It Here

The horror films may have defined Raimi’s career. but it was his first two Spider-Man movies that immortalized him. Raimi helped usher in the modern era of superhero cinematic dominance at first with Spider-Man; his deft touch and warm care for the characters and world made an entire generation of people care about Peter Parker. Some pitch-perfect casting—Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, and Kirsten Dunst just to name a few—doesn’t hurt either.

Stream It Here

Raimi’s greatest movie—and one of the very greatest supehero movies, period—is Spider-Man 2. Everything that Spider-Man did so well is done even better here, from a villain with purpose (Doc Ock, played brilliantly by Alfred Molina) to unforgettable set pieces (the train scene is legendary, and Doc Ock’s tentacles taking out an entire room of medical workers is a wonderful throwback to Raimi’s horror origins). This is a movie that has characters we care about, and somehow stakes that feel high and feel real.And maybe it’s just my inner teenage turmoil talking, but the movie’s theme song—”Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional—is one of the great movie theme songs. If every superhero movie were this good, there would probably a whole lot less complaining about the genre as it is today.

Stream It Here