Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Every Actress, Film and Fate

Gwen Stacy is Peter Parker's classmate and love interest in the live action Spider-Man films, and she appears in exactly three of them. Bryce Dallas Howard plays her in Spider-Man 3 (2007), and Emma Stone plays her in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Those three films sit in two universes: Sam Raimi's saga and Marc Webb's two films.

Was Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man? Yes, though not in the 2002 original. Her first appearance is Spider-Man 3, reported with a US release date of May 4, 2007 and directed by Sam Raimi. Howard is billed sixth, and James Cromwell plays her father, credited as Captain Stacy.

Marc Webb then made her a lead. In The Amazing Spider-Man, released July 3, 2012, Stone is billed second behind Andrew Garfield, with Denis Leary as Captain Stacy. Stone returns in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, released May 2, 2014, again billed second.

Gwen Stacy is credited under that name in all three films, and she has no costumed identity in any of them. She is a civilian throughout, so any question about a Gwen Stacy Spider-Man costume points to a different character: Hailee Steinfeld's animated Gwen of the Spider-Verse films has her own entry at Spider-Gwen. For the wider cast, see Spider-Man cast and crew.

Gwen Stacy's arc runs from a minor role in Spider-Man 3 to Peter's partner and then his deepest loss in the Webb films. Spoilers follow for all three films.

Howard's Gwen sits at the edge of the main story. Peter, wearing the black symbiote suit and turning arrogant, flirts with her to hurt Mary Jane Watson. Her father, Captain Stacy, is the one who tells Peter that the escaped convict Flint Marko, now the Sandman, was the real killer of Uncle Ben. Her role is small, but it connects directly to the film's central rift between Peter and Mary Jane. Read more at Spider-Man 3.

Here Gwen is Peter's classmate and crush, and an intern at Oscorp, where Dr. Curt Connors works. She is not waiting to be rescued: when Connors becomes the Lizard and plans to release a gas from Oscorp Tower that would turn the whole city into lizard creatures, Gwen and Peter work out an antidote together. Her father, Captain Stacy, learns that Peter is Spider-Man and helps clear his way to the tower. He is fatally wounded in the fight and makes Peter promise to keep away from Gwen. Peter tries, cannot stay away, and tells her so. See The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).

Peter and Gwen are dating, though Peter is haunted by that promise to her father, and they split at their graduation. Gwen is then offered a place at Oxford, and Peter decides to follow her to England. When Max Dillon becomes Electro and attacks a power station, Peter and Gwen overload him with electricity, which kills him. Harry Osborn, who took over Oscorp after his father Norman died, arrives in an armored glider suit as the Green Goblin, works out that Peter is Spider-Man and takes Gwen to a clock tower. Gwen falls to her death there. A video of her graduation speech later inspires Peter to put the suit back on. See The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

Gwen Stacy's most important relationships are with Peter Parker and her father, and her ties to Oscorp and the Osborns shape the Webb films. Each film pairs these differently, which is why her place in the story feels so different from Raimi's film to Webb's.

Peter Parker. Peter is Gwen's boyfriend in the Marc Webb films, and in Spider-Man 3 he uses a flirtation with her against Mary Jane. So, is Gwen Stacy in love with Spider-Man? In the Webb films, yes: the break at graduation in the second film comes from his guilt over her father, not from any loss of feeling. For Peter himself, see Peter Parker.

Captain Stacy. Her father is a police captain in every live action film: James Cromwell in Spider-Man 3 and Denis Leary in The Amazing Spider-Man. In the first Webb film his death shapes Peter and Gwen's whole romance, because the promise he extracts hangs over the second film.

Mary Jane Watson. Mary Jane is Peter's neighbor and first love in Raimi's films, while Gwen is a science minded classmate and Oscorp intern in Webb's. Mary Jane, played by Kirsten Dunst, is an aspiring actress with a stage career in Spider-Man 3. Gwen has a police family and a lab internship. In Spider-Man 3 the two are rivals for Peter's attention, while in the Webb films Mary Jane does not appear. See Mary Jane Watson.

Oscorp and the Osborns. Gwen's internship ties her to Oscorp in the first Webb film, and in the second Harry Osborn, the new head of the company, becomes the Green Goblin who takes her to the clock tower. For the family, see Norman Osborn and Harry Osborn.

What happens to Gwen Stacy depends on the universe: she dies in the Webb series, and her fate is left open in the Raimi film.

Webb's universe. Emma Stone's Gwen dies in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) when she falls from the clock tower after Harry Osborn, as the Green Goblin, takes her there. Peter beats Harry, but he cannot save her, and he stops being Spider-Man for months. Her recorded graduation speech is what draws him back, just as Aleksei Sytsevich, now the armored Rhino, rampages through the city.

Raimi's universe. What happened to Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3? Her part is her flirtation with Peter while he wears the black suit, and her father's revelation about Flint Marko. The film gives her no death and no later arc. It ends with Peter and Mary Jane reconciling after Harry's funeral, so Howard's Gwen is simply left behind.

My best Gwen Stacy moment is her building the Lizard antidote with Peter in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), and that is an opinion, not a fact. Spoilers for all three films follow, and the ranking favors scenes where she acts rather than scenes where something happens to her.

1. Building the antidote in The Amazing Spider-Man. This is where Webb's Gwen earns her place. She works at Oscorp, she understands the science, and she and Peter solve the Lizard problem together, which does more for their relationship than any date.

2. Overloading Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Gwen and Peter bring Max Dillon down together at the power station, and it is the best proof that the film sees her as a partner. The clock tower scene that follows is the one most people remember, and it hurts because of how much she did first.

3. The graduation speech. A recorded speech is a quiet way to bring a hero back, and I like that Gwen still moves the plot after she is gone. Emma Stone is the reason it lands.

4. Captain Stacy's promise. Gwen is not in the room for the promise, yet it drives the second film. From a comics literate angle, the Stacy family has long been bound to Spider-Man's story, and Webb builds the romance on that weight.

5. Spider-Man 3, for contrast. Howard's Gwen is billed sixth and mostly serves the rift between Peter and Mary Jane. That is why the character feels so different in the Webb films, where she carries a whole plot thread.