Warning: spoilers ahead.

2021 was a big year for the film industry. Despite the pandemic, over 500 million people went to theaters to see movies on the big screen, more than doubling 2020’s movie attendance. A whopping 12,307 movies were released just last year in the U.S..

Among all the excellent films we saw, one stands out from the crowd for us: “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

Following the events of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” where the main antagonist, Quentin Beck, reveals Spider-Man’s true identity as Peter Parker and frames him for Beck’s murder, Peter Parker faces widespread public hatred. In just a few moving scenes, the movie both did a convincing job of showing how much pressure Parker was under and also subtly commented on cancel culture. 

Even though he was declared innocent in the court of law, Parker was still perceived as guilty in the court of public opinion. This is illustrated through the constant public harassment of the Parkers — news helicopters keep circling their  apartment building and someone throws a brick through the apartment window. The media and public’s harassment — along with Parker’s friends’ rejections from MIT — sets the premise for Parker’s decision to try and erase the public’s knowledge of Spider-Man’s secret identity. 

Parker asks his friend Doctor Strange to cast a spell, making everyone forget that he’s Spider-Man. However, Parker ruins the spell, which forces Strange to contain it in a box. 

Unbeknownst to either of them, this botched spell opens portals in the Multiverse, bringing characters from other universes into theirs. For the rest of the movie, Parker and his friends try to fix his mistake and send the villains from alternate universes back to their homes.

In monetary terms, “No Way Home” overshadowed all other releases this year, with worldwide profits exceeding $1.3 billion as of January, replacing “Black Panther” as the No. 12 highest-grossing film of all time. Compared to Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” which was originally the most successful film of 2021, “No Way Home” surpassed it in the United States and Canada by a factor of four.

Even disregarding these record-setting profits, “No Way Home” is still the best movie released in 2021. 

As the third installment of a collaborative series by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios, it is nevertheless an outstanding movie by itself, even without watching the preceding “Homecoming” and “Far From Home.”

The main cast consists of humorous yet emotionally rich actors Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon. The two previous movies starring these characters have built a deep connection with the audience throughout the trilogy. This continuity is what gives “No Way Home” an advantage over other movies, as the audience is already invested in the characters and want to know what happens to them. 

A major gripe many critics had with “Homecoming” was that Peter Parker was too cheerful and carefree, considering his somber origin story in the original comics where his Uncle Ben dies due to his reckless actions. 

Contrary to “Homecoming,” “No Way Home” captures a more comic-aligned version of Parker. All the conflicts in the plot arise from Parker’s bad decisions, echoing the adage made famous by Stan Lee — “With great power comes great responsibility.” This is different from previous films, where Parker was just someone that bad things happened to. Parker’s own choices causing disaster makes those bad things far more tragic.

Although Holland’s Spider-Man still retains his endearing nerdiness, his character becomes more independent, flawed and realistic. The film deals with themes of loss and guilt, and the Spider-Man at the end of the film is a far cry from the meek and submissive Spider-Man in “Homecoming.”

Many iconic villains from previous Spider-Man worlds are brought back such as Doc Ock, as well as many heroes. The characters look identical to how they did years ago, bringing a sense of nostalgia for many older fans. This separates it from other movies made this year, being the only one to bring in characters from separate reboots of the same movie franchise. 

These old characters are also given a major role in the plot, and their inclusion caters to fans who watched the original movies decades ago. This commitment to dedicated fans boosts “No Way Home” from a fun action movie for kids to a film that acknowledges and gives closure to the original two movie series, neatly tying together the entire Spider-Man franchise.

Even though there were a lot of strong contenders for the best movie of last year, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has to be the best. It combines over 20 years of Spider-Man into one movie, a move unexpected to anyone. Now Sony and Marvel will have to decide whether there will be a sequel or a reboot.