‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Just Became the Highest-Rated MCU Movie Ever, and the Numbers Are Staggering

Marvel’s track record with critics and audiences has had its share of ups and downs over the years, with some phases earning near-universal acclaim while others struggled to win over even loyal fans. Every new release carries the weight of that history, arriving with fans and critics alike ready to measure it against everything that came before.

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ entered theaters this week already riding a wave of momentum, thanks to record-breaking preview numbers and glowing early reactions from critics who caught the film ahead of its wide release. Reviews had already flagged it as a potential high point for the franchise, but the scale of just how well it would be received was still coming into focus.

That picture is now fully clear. ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ currently holds a 4.2 rating on Letterboxd, making it both the highest-rated MCU movie ever and the highest-rated live-action Spider-Man movie in the franchise’s history.

That milestone lines up with strong numbers across nearly every major review platform. The film holds a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, tying the site’s highest-ever audience rating for an MCU movie, while its critics’ score sits between 91% and 92% depending on the aggregation, officially earning Certified Fresh status and marking the best-reviewed MCU release in five years.

IMDb tells a similarly favorable story. The film currently sits at 8.2 out of 10 on the platform, edging out ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’s’ 8.1, and comfortably surpassing ‘Homecoming’s’ 7.4 and ‘Far From Home’s’ 7.3.

Critics have been largely effusive in their praise. William Bibbiani of The Wrap wrote that the film stands as one of the highlights of the entire franchise, a sentiment echoed across much of the early critical response praising the movie’s return to the character’s web-slinging fundamentals and its focus on personal, grounded stakes.

Not every review has been glowing, though the dissent has remained relatively rare. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman argued the film was “trying too hard” and ultimately “watchable without ever being transporting,” while IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called it “dull and downbeat,” criticizing the story’s forward momentum. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw landed somewhere in between with three stars, suggesting the franchise could benefit from a more radical reboot down the line.

Averaged across Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic and Letterboxd on a converted 100-point scale, the film currently sits at 84.8 out of 100, an unusually strong result for a superhero movie at a moment when the genre has faced growing fatigue from both critics and audiences. Notably, the gap between audience and critic scores measured just seven percent, a relatively small split that suggests broad consensus rather than a divide between casual fans and professional reviewers.

With box office numbers already tracking toward one of the biggest openings in Marvel history, and reviews cementing ‘Brand New Day’ as a genuine high point for the franchise, the film appears to be delivering on nearly every front at once. For a series that’s occasionally struggled to balance spectacle with emotional weight, this particular installment seems to have finally found the formula fans and critics can agree on.

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