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Every Sam Raimi Film Ranked
- James Learoyd
- 20 hours ago
- 9 min read
Filmmaker Feature by James Learoyd
Sam Raimi currently has a new film out in cinemas! What better time than now to deconstruct his career; most celebrated for, but not limited to, his genre-defining works of horror. You can view the following as both a ranking of, and a semi-comprehensive guide to, the incomparable work of one of Hollywood’s most influential genre-filmmakers.
16. Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
There’s not really any other contender. And yet... the critically panned James Franco vehicle is not quite as devoid of Raimi’s signature style as you might expect. It’s an ugly but morbidly intriguing creation – cursed by the flat and garish CGI world the characters enter, whilst also having that superficial world act as the movie’s most unique, ambitious (and thus, arguably admirable) trait. Franco is horrendous.
15. Crimewave (1985)
If I had to describe his forgotten second feature Crimewave in a single word, it would be... clunky. The only pure comedy in his filmography is also his least funny, as this infantile spoof struggles to weave together a series of maddening hijinks recalled by a man waiting to be executed.
The plot makes every effort not to make sense. Still, Raimi’s heartfelt admiration for the Three Stooges and doors-and-halls comedies of the thirties is on full show throughout. It’s playful, yes, but slightly awkward.
14. For Love of the Game (1999)
This Kevin Costner-led baseball drama is Sam Raimi at his most restrained. But that’s a two-edged sword since it's also the project of his in which you struggle to identify the director’s signature style.
Out of his failures, it is, in many ways, the stylistic opposite of Crimewave – whereas that movie is expressive, energetic and incomprehensible; For Love of the Game is smooth, steady, but utterly uninteresting. Treacly, tiresome and unconvincing. In the eyes of this critic, Raimi has just three bad movies.
13. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
The main issue with Raimi’s fleeting foray into the MCU is that, after almost four years, it fails to leave a lasting impression. Watching it in the moment, however, was a different story: its inclusion of maximalist visuals and the general sense of playfulness over in-world relevance felt like a breath of fresh air for the comic-book genre. Nevertheless, it’s watered-down Raimi.
12. Spider-Man 3 (2007)
From this point forward, every film is, at the very least, passable. A pretty impeccable track record! What a life cycle Spider-Man 3 has experienced. From ridiculed disappointment to ubiquitous meme to – dare I say – cult-classic?
It’s certainly no longer cool to label this ‘one of the worst sequels of all time’ as many did at the time, particularly considering the standard of franchise film that became the norm in the years following. But it’s not only that time has softened the cultural response; this movie is weird, and in a good way. You just have to submit to the maddening moves and rhythms of emo Maguire.
11. The Gift (2000)
This supernatural murder-mystery follows a fortune-teller and single mother-of-two played excellently by Cate Blanchett. Co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, it remains a fascinatingly rich story about lingering regional prejudice, generational abuse and the significance of the mystical.
By no means a failure; it just doesn’t quite know what it wishes to be. It’s Raimi’s most middling... so much of it is good, beautifully photographed and tangibly melancholy, but it’s not necessarily ‘a good movie’. The director’s remaining ten pictures in this ranking are unambiguous entertainments.
10. Darkman (1990)
Darkman is narratively wild, cinematically vivid and thoroughly entertaining. Released just one year after the money-making machine that was Tim Burton’s Batman, this too showcases a Danny Elfman score complementing the tale of a caped hero out for revenge.
Starring Liam Neeson as a scientist deformed after an attack, he uses his invention to create real but temporary flesh, such as that of a person’s face. Unlike Batman, Raimi swaps out the comic book sensibility with something truly disturbing, while still maintaining some pulp.
9. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
If you haven’t seen this movie, and are looking for a truly fun horror, do yourself a favour and throw on this supernatural chiller one night. With the exception of one special release (which we’ll get to), this feels like modern Raimi existing within his most self-assured genre-space.
A cynic may argue that this is simply him playing the hits, but who doesn’t love watching a talented artist do what they do best? I doubt many would argue that this is anything near masterful – though it’s an exceptionally tight and functional work of horror.
8. Spider-Man (2002)
It would be a criminal understatement to suggest that this film accomplished anything less than to revolutionise – and truly commercialise in a way before unseen (with perhaps the exception of the first X-Men) – the superhero genre. And on a personal note: Spider-Man is one of the very first movies I remember watching in my life (it’s that, Men in Black and The Addams Family).
With that personal and canonical context established, it’s difficult to judge this structurally simple movie on its own merits. All I’ll say is that, despite not being a fan of comic book movies, to this day any scene of web-slinging and soaring through the streets of New York still excites me to my very core.
7. The Quick and the Dead (1995)
With The Quick and the Dead at number seven, we enter Great territory. Raimi’s one and only Western is considerably illuminating when it comes to his taste in historic American cinema, Hollywood star-power, and how his kinetic cinematic sensibility (perfected and easily identifiable to the viewing public at this point) works in tandem with those aspects.
Boasting ferocious performances from Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman (effectively inhabiting the Oscar-winning role he played in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven just three years prior), this is a work bursting with affection for the legacy of the genre it’s inhabiting, whilst also bringing a more revisionist, female-oriented story to the fore.
6. Army of Darkness (1992)
Controversial, perhaps, is that the third instalment of Raimi’s most legendary and influential project – the Evil Dead trilogy – makes it only to number six on this ranking, despite having one of the most devoted and passionate cult fanbases of any sequel in Horror history.
More obviously a conventional comedy than the previous two, despite being, in my opinion, not as funny as the second, Ash now seems to inhabit and define the image of the ‘boom-stick’-wielding, hot-but-dumb persona that would forever encapsulate Bruce Campbell’s career, and he and Raimi know it.
It’s a matter of taste, but this critic prefers these movies to balance 60% frights with 40% laughs instead of the other way around. Nevertheless, a classic for a reason.
5. Send Help (2026)
I’m delighted to report that Send Help, Sam Raimi’s latest survival-comedy (with a sprinkle of horror) starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, is the director’s first triumph in some time; probably his best movie since the massive success of his 2004 comic book sequel (which we’re about to discuss).
The setup is simple, but endlessly amusing, as McAdams’ Linda Liddle – previously belittled and ridiculed by her power-hungry boss Bradley (O’Brien) – finally gets to put her love of the outdoors into practice when their plane crash-lands near a deserted island. It’s perfect territory for Raimi to finally have fun again as a storyteller.
I can’t help but view the plot of this film in metatextual terms: it’s as if O’Brien represents Marvel, or some other powerful studio, promising Raimi his creative freedom (Liddle’s promotion) yet never fully delivering. It finally takes a plane crashing (the negative critical response of Doctor Strange) for the director to come into his own, to become aware of how his talents have been exploited to serve some capitalistic powerhouse, and utilise his undeniable skill and craft to do what he does best.
Raimi is making delicious sushi out of the little resources he has; while the MCU, holding only the illusion of power, fails even to make a functional shelter. I’m getting carried away. But it's loads of fun and everyone should go watch it.
4. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
One must acknowledge the fact that, for a great many, this is Sam Raimi’s magnum opus; and for good reason. Easily one of the more well-crafted superhero films in history, Spider-Man 2 can be considered superior to the first for a couple big reasons (outside of the obvious sequel byproducts, better developed characters, less obligation to world-building etc.).
While we all love Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, there’s nothing quite like Alfred Molina as Doc Ock. He’s filled with charisma, and like many great bad guys of this sort, his intelligence both impresses and terrifies. The pure image of him without shirt, adorned in trenchcoat and shades, is just stunningly realised in his form – a genius work of casting.
And then, of all of Raimi’s non-horror projects, the fact that this movie contains perhaps the most terrifying sequence he has ever captured is an outrageous feat. I’m of course referring to the attack in the operating theatre, wherein the surgeons are picked off one by one in most subjective and horrifying fashion by the bionic arms of our antagonist – one of the most effective scenes of Raimi’s entire filmography.
3. A Simple Plan (1998)
And thus, we find ourselves at the final three. A toss-up between two films which inarguably define the aesthetic of what we know to be a Sam Raimi Film, and another which couldn’t feel more distinct from his genre origins.
It almost feels wrong that the snowy crime-thriller A Simple Plan is Raimi’s single truly good film not belonging to a ‘Genre’ (you can dispute the technicalities of this, but you understand what I’m getting at). You would think the man had a better baseball movie in him, or even another claustrophobic drama; but a director’s DNA is what it is after all.
The fact, therefore, that this movie is as fantastic as it is – but more than that, as reserved and carefully-measured as it is – can be considered nothing less than a miracle. If you haven’t seen it, the setup is one we know well: after stumbling across a load of money at the site of a plane crash, two brothers intend to keep the cash for themselves.
Let’s just say that the titular plan
doesn’t end up being so simple! It’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by way of Fargo. If that doesn’t sound like a good time to you, I’m not sure there’s much common ground between us.
2. The Evil Dead (1981)
Sam Raimi was 21 years old when he directed his debut feature The Evil Dead and changed the face of, not just horror, but low-budget independent filmmaking forever. Is there anything more inspiring? For a filmmaker, not really. It’s the kind of legend which has inspired a generation of film-lovers to ‘simply go out and make something’, as they say.
Encapsulating the cabin-in-the-woods subgenre, the film is the result of pure ingenuity, directorial problem-solving and gooey fun. A highlight is Raimi’s innovation of the fast-moving wide-angled camera – an effect famously achieved, in part, by riding on a motorcycle – with the shot representing the perspective of some unseen spirit force lurking in the woods. This approach would be perfected in our next pick.
Also important to note is that it’s as violent and bloody as any horror movie from this time could realistically get while also managing a wide theatrical release, testing the stomachs of audiences all over America. The same could not be said here in the UK, however, as it was an infamous early example of a ‘video nasty’ – banned from video outlets for many years. Some movies are just that good that us Brits can’t handle them.
1. Evil Dead II (1987)
There’s no two ways about it. Evil Dead II is Sam Raimi’s masterpiece, and the movie which still represents the peak of the Horror-Comedy hybrid.
Star Bruce Campbell eloquently labelled this film as a “requel” (something between a remake and a sequel) to address the fact that the opening few minutes of the film recounts the events of the first with different actors, only to then repeat the original formula (due to Raimi losing the rights to his first movie – a result of his lack of industry-savvy at that point).
Yet this time we have a bigger budget, more kinetic camera techniques, and an unrivalled awareness of genre, style and performance.
What’s quite beautiful is how every tonal decision manages to somehow complement some other tonal decision, no matter how opposed (on its surface) these moments of mood or style might be. Comedy and horror embrace one another, because a joke will either be setting up something terrifying, or a moment of genuine horror will communicate itself to such a degree that, much like the crazed, scarred Ash – staring wildly, mouth agape, laughing into Raimi’s eye-bulging wide-angle lens – we cannot help but laugh.
Quintessential viewing for genre-lovers, the director’s unique vision – his sense of play and emphasis on visual expression – has never been better crystallised.
