A lot of people say The Dark Knight, but for me, it's Spider Man 2. My favorite CBM of all time.
Peter's character arc as a struggling superhero was really well done, thanks to Alvin Sargeant's script and the acting skills of Tobey Maguire.
Peter just had the worst luck in this movie, from trying to care for his poor Aunt, win the heart of the girl he loves, work two jobs just to make ends meet and pay the rent, get to class on time, and on top of it all, save the citizens of New York from crime.
James Franco also gave a great performance as Harry Osborne. His friendship with Peter quickly becomes unglued as he becomes completely obsessed with finding Spider Man. Both he and Peter had really good arcs in the movie.
Otto's transformation was a quite an intense scene for me when I first saw this in theaters way back in 2004. Otto's tentacles straight up murdered a whole staff of doctors in pretty brutal fashion. Sure The Joker killed a lot of people in The Dark Knight, but hearing all those doctors screaming in horror as they were killed one by one was pretty darn haunting for me.
Some people complain about Kirsten Dunst in these films, but I guess I'm in the minority as one who finds the romance really well done here. The scene after the Birthday party was pretty touching, imo, as was Peter's reveal as Spider Man.
'..Hi.'
'Hi.'
'This is really heavy..'
I also admired the theme of self sacrifice, foreshadowed by Aunt May. Just an excellent film all around.