7 Reasons Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is The Best MCU Movie Since Endgame

Published Sep 28, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

Once head of Screen Rant's Star Wars coverage and co-lead of Superheroes, Tom Bacon now works with the movies and books teams. He's a lifelong fan of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and loves franchises such as Doctor Who and Marvel. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon, on LinkedIn @tabacon, or on Muckrack under tombacon.

Tom has a wide range of interests, and he continues to serve his university as a volunteer chaplain. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he's into British politics too.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has bucked the Multiverse Saga's trend, proving itself the best MCU movie since Endgame in 2019. It's a strange time for Marvel; the MCU's Multiverse Saga descended into chaos, and not everything was the studio's fault. Let's face it, the post-Endgame MCU was disrupted by a global pandemic, the Jonathan Majors scandal, and a Disney-level demand to increase output and produce Disney+ shows. All this left Marvel overstretched, and quality suffered. Disney broke Marvel and Star Wars, and is still trying to fix the damage.

And then came Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The latest Spider-Man movie has proved a box office juggernaut, grossing almost $2.5 billion worldwide (and counting). Spider-Man remains the biggest superhero in the world, outshining even the likes of Batman and Superman, and outperforming most Avengers movies. Audiences are raving about Brand New Day, and its digital release is sure to be another event. Why is this one film so much better than anything else Marvel has made in the last seven years?

7 Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is A Film That's Actually About Something

This Is A Movie With A Message

Credit: MovieStillsDB

Most Marvel movies are based on the Campbell's Hero's Journey, meaning the plots are pretty standard: a hero learns they must stand alone against the rising darkness, and it all culminates in a powerful one-on-one duel against the villain (or a scene where the hero successfully takes down an army or a monster). That worked for Iron Man, Thor, and even Doctor Strange. That was fine in 2008, and even in 2016, but viewers are ready for something a little different.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day literally abandons the Hero's Journey. It turns it upside-down, because this time the theme is not triumphal independence: rather, it's the need for connection. There's no sky portal, and Peter "wins" by showing Jean Grey a memory of Aunt May. In fact, the Punisher is portrayed as the traditional lone wolf hero, and Brand New Day deliberates breaks him down. This is a movie with a message — that we win through relationships — and it feels like one we need to hear in this atomized world.

Not The Other Way Round

Image via Sony

Brand New Day is absolutely packed with MCU cameos. Mark Ruffalo returns as the Hulk, Sadie Sink is Jean Grey, and Jon Bernthal brings the Punisher to the big screen a full decade after he first played the role on Netflix. But there was a difference between these cameos and the ones we're used to. This was no "Ant-Man Versus the Falcon Just Because," and you didn't walk away feeling another character had been tossed in for the sake of it.

Rather, every character served a purpose in the narrative. The three cameos were mirrors of Spider-Man: the Punisher was the Hero's Journey he'd gone on, taken to its logical broken fulfillment. Bruce Banner and the Hulk represented the destructive duality Spider-Man had bought into when he failed to recover his human connections. And Jean Grey robbed others of agency, just as Peter had done by not allowing his loved ones to choose. Every character existed to underscore Spider-Man's own arc, giving Brand New Day thematic unity that's quite unusual for Marvel.

5 Peter Parker Has A Brilliant Character Arc (With Real Consequences)

Marvel Moves On From The Hero's Journey

The best stories take the main character on an arc, a journey of some kind. They typically do this by giving the hero a "wound" of some kind, a source of pain that has generated a wrong belief. Over the course of the story, the hero's false belief is stripped away until they learn the truth. Brand New Day turns No Way Home into Peter Parker's wound: he's lost all connection, and believes his loved ones are better without himself in their lives. He thinks he's better off reduced to just being Spider-Man.

Brand New Day strips Spider-Man of that illusion. It forces him to reconnect with his loved ones (albeit with consequences; MJ still resents his decision not to restore her memories, recognizing it as an attack on her agency). Spider-Man only gains control of his new powers by embracing his duality, and he saves the day by letting Jean see the memories of Peter Parker. It is Peter she needs, not Spider-Man, and it is Peter who saves the day. Finally, at the end of Brand New Day, Spider-Man connects with Ned once again. He's learned his lesson, and completed his arc.

4 Sadie Sink's Jean Grey Is An Absolutely Phenomenal Antagonist

And No, She's Not Redeemed

It certainly helps that Brand New Day has some of the best casting we've seen in the MCU since Endgame. Sadie Sink's Jean Grey is absolutely phenomenal; the Stranger Things star has proved herself worthy of becoming one of the MCU's leading lights. It helps that Brand New Day takes a "less is more" approach, keeping Jean out of it until the third act and simply establishing the terrifying nature of her powers.

Jean Grey has proved surprisingly controversial online, largely because many traditional MCU viewers feel she went a little too far on occasion. But that's the whole point; this Jean Grey isn't a hero or villain, she's simply a wounded teenager with too much power and a lot of trauma. She isn't on a redemption story, because redemption isn't what she needs; it's connection. That's part of what makes her such an effective mirror to Spider-Man himself.

3 Brand New Day Abandons The Multiverse Saga's Nostalgia

There's More To The MCU Than Yesteryear

Spider-Man: No Way Home set the pattern for the Multiverse Saga, bringing back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as different variants of Spider-Man. The Multiverse Saga began with the idea of alternate versions of established MCU characters, but it's grown increasingly insular. Doomsday is doubling down on this, bringing back actors who haven't played their Marvel roles since the 2000s. Nostalgia is the name of the game.

It would have been so easy for Brand New Day to take a similar approach. This movie introduces the MCu's version of Jean Grey, after all. And yet, despite that fact, there's no trace of the iconic X-Men: The Animated Series theme tune. It's true the movie pauses for audiences to react to Jean's name, but the heroes themselves don't, and the story simply moves on from that point. Brand New Day eschews nostalgia to tell a brand new story at last.

2 Brand New Day Is An Absolutely Beautiful Film

No Poor CGI, Coupled With Amazing Fight Choreography

The Multiverse Saga has often felt rushed, with Marvel lacking the bandwidth to make shows and films properly. It resulted in rushed CGI, and often poor fight choreography. There were exceptions — think Destin Daniel Cretton's stunning fight choreography in Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings — but they were few and far between. But Marvel brought Cretton back for Brand New Day, and the result is stunning.

It's been five years since Spider-Man: No Way Home, but Marvel and Sony chose not to rush the wall-crawler's next outing. It was the right decision, because Brand New Day feels "finished" in a way even Avengers: Endgame didn't. The fight choreography is incredible, too; it's true Brand New Day lacks the traditional superhero third-act brawl with the main baddie, but Cretton uses the wall-crawler's powers in delightful new ways and pays homage to every past iteration with gorgeous effects.

1 Tom Holland & Brand New Day's Cast Give Stunning Performances

The Stars Are True Powerhouses Now

Image via MovieStillsDB

Looking beyond the director and production team, though, Brand New Day has a cast firing on all cylinders. Tom Holland Zendaya have rightly become Hollywood legends in their own right, both maturing as their acting careers develop. Even better, they've been playing these roles for a long time, and by now they understand and embody the characters on an almost instinctive level.

One scene above all others showcased their acting chops: the moment Zendaya reveals she's possessed by Jean Grey. That's dark, sinister, and full of passion. Zendaya is deliberately playing a very different person, Holland's Peter Parker is wracked with emotion, and the tension level is through the roof. This one scene showcases just how good the main cast have become, proving that Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a committed team who are firing on all cylinders.