“Okay, let’s do this one last time…”
This line pops up a lot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. As in it’s its predecessor Into the Spider-Verse, we get introductions from Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), and numerous other Spider-Folk as they introduce themselves with variations of the same origin story (bitten by a radioactive spider and for the last <insert period of time> I’ve been the one and only Spider-Man). The line works as humor because there are so many “one and only” Spider-Men. It also works as a bit of meta-humor because, after nine other Spider-Man movies, of course we all know the story.
That intro is appropriate for this entry in my list of the top ten films of the year. I wrote a lot about Across the Spider-Verse here. And I wrote a little bit more about it here. I don’t really need to write a whole lot more about it. After an end-of-the-year rewatch, I can tell you that it’s still truly great. Exciting, funny, touching, tense, bittersweet—it’s a movie that pretty much has it all. It’s not just a great superhero movie. It’s not just a great animated movie. It’s a great movie, full stop. And so it’s my best studio film, best English-language film, and my pick for the #3 film of 2023.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is streaming on Netflix and is available on all physical media and VOD outlets.
(Photo credit: Sony Pictures)