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All 33 MCU Movies Ranked

On the occasion of the release of The Marvels, we ranked all the films in the MCU.

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All 33 Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies Ranked
Photo: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Most of Marvel Studios’s films are the cinematic equivalent of breadcrumbs, which have been dropped into theaters strategically so as to keep one looking for the next sequel or crossover, when the endless televisual exposition will eventually, theoretically yield an event of actual consequence. Occasionally, however, a Marvel film transcends this impersonality and justifies one’s patience. Weird, stylish, and surprisingly lyrical, Ant-Man, Iron Man 3, and Doctor Strange attest to the benefits of the old Hollywood-style studio system that Marvel has resurrected: Under the umbrella of structure and quota is security, which can bequeath qualified freedom. On the occasion of the release of Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, here’s a ranking of every film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to date. Chuck Bowen

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on April 25, 2018.


The Incredible Hulk

33. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

The aesthetic dexterity and psychological depth of Ang Lee’s Hulk is corrupted by Louis Leterrier’s intermittently kinetic but depressingly shallow The Incredible Hulk. In response to complaints that Lee’s unjustly excoriated 2003 effort was too talky and slow, Leterrier swings the pendulum to the opposite side of the spectrum, delivering a slam-bang spectacle so lacking in weight that, until the impressive finale, the film seems downright terrified of character and relationship development, as if too much conversation or—gasp!—subtextual heft will immediately alienate coveted young male fanboys. Nick Schager

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Thor: Love and Thunder

32. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

For a significant portion of its midsection, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder sags under the weight of the rudderless romantic angle involving Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), even as Gorr (Christian Bale) is going about kidnapping Asgardian children in order to lure Thor into a trap. A side tour into a city of gods ruled by Zeus (a consistently amusing Russell Crowe, whose goofy Greek accent and incessant talk of orgies are this film’s only saving graces) emphasizes how deities exist in solipsistic isolation from the lowly mortal realms that they created, but it also drags out a confrontation that never feels like it has any stakes. Only Bale’s unpredictable, serpentine movements bring any menace to a character whose war against the gods feels like an afterthought to a bad rom-com. Jake Cole


Avengers: Endgame

31. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

There’s some fleeting fun to be had when the Anthony and Joe Russo’s Avengers: Endgame turns into a sort of heist film, occasioning what effectively amounts to an in-motion recap of prior entries in the MCU. Yet every serious narrative beat is ultimately undercut by pro-forma storytelling (the emotional beats never linger, as the characters are always race-race-racing to the next big plot point), or by faux-improvised humor, with ringmaster Tony “Iron Man” Stark (a clearly done-with-it Robert Downey Jr.) leading the sardonic-tongued charge. Elsewhere, bona fide celebs like Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Natalie Portman are reduced to glorified extras. Even the glow of movie stardom is dimmed by the supernova that is the Marvel machine’s at best competently produced weightlessness. Keith Uhlich

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Captain Marvel

30. Captain Marvel (2018)

As another of the character-introducing MCU stories existing mostly to feed new superheroes into the Avengers series, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel looks like something of a trial run. You know the drill: If the film lands with audiences, then you can count on Captain Marvel (Brie Larson)—like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and even Ant-Man before her—getting her own series. But if not, then, hey, she’s at least assured of being asked to pop by the game room at Stark Industries for a kibitz in somebody else’s franchise down the road. Based on what’s on display here, Captain Marvel could well get her own star turn again at some point, but hopefully it will be with a different crew behind the camera. Chris Barsanti


Iron Man 2

29. Iron Man 2 (2010)

Upgraded with the latest CGI hardware but also more shoddy screenwriting software than its system can withstand, Iron Man 2 is an example of subtraction by addition. For a sequel designed to deliver what its predecessor did not, Jon Favreau’s follow-up to his 2008 blockbuster piles on incidents and characters it doesn’t need while still managing to skimp on the combat that should be this franchise’s bread and butter but which remains an element only trotted out at sporadic intervals and in modest portions. Schager

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Avengers: Infinity War

28. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

After 18 films, the Marvel overlords gathered almost all of their indentured servants, er, star-studded stable together into Anthony and Joe Russo’s ever-crashing, ever-booming, and ever-banging extravaganza Avengers: Infinity War. Whether you look at this whirling dervish and see a gleefully grandiose entertainment or a depressing exemplar of the culturally degraded present moment will depend on your investment—in all senses of that term—in Marvel’s carefully cultivated mythos. The film is all manic monotony. It’s passably numbing in the moment. And despite the hard-luck finish—something an obligatory post-credits sequence goes a long way toward neutering—it’s instantly forgettable. Strange thing to say about a film featuring Peter Dinklage as the tallest dwarf in the universe. Uhlich


Black Widow

27. Black Widow (2021)

Black Widow isn’t terribly hard to follow, but in execution the film moves so haphazardly as to be bewildering. Almost every single clue about the Red Room that Natasha uncovers leads to a bloated action sequence that, with its combination of sloppy editing and garish CGI, invariably comes across as a parody of the Marvel house style. Avengers: Age of Ultron notoriously sought to generate pathos for Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff with a horribly reductionist line about her feeling like a monster for having had an involuntary hysterectomy at the Red Room. In its final moments, Black Widow gives its heroine the humanity she never quite gained in her appearances in prior Marvel films, so it’s a shame that this slight but crucial wrinkle to the familiar morality of so many superhero stories ultimately feels more like a twist than a springboard for a new, more morally enlightened era of the MCU. Cole

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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

26. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

For all their faults, Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp felt at the time of their respective releases like welcome reprieves from the bombastic, CGI-laden spectacles of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Next to Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang, a.k.a. Ant-Man, brings an everyman quality to the MCU that makes the typically snarky humor of the first two Ant-Man films go down that much easier. The goofy little adventures that Ant-Man gets himself into in those films aren’t dependent on intertextuality with a dozen other films, allowing their visual playfulness—namely in regard to the shrinking and blowing up of objects—to be enjoyable for its own sake. But with Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it’s as if the suits at Marvel wondered what would happen if they not only made the film the flagship entry of yet another “phase” in the MCU, but ditched nearly everything that was remotely unique about the first two Ant-Man films. Derek Smith


Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

25. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

As it has continued to dig deeper and deeper into a catalog that dates back to 1939, looking for what else might be available for adaptation, Marvel Studios is increasingly sanding away the distinctive character traits that led to considerable critical and commercial acclaim for Marvel Comics publications starting in the 1960s. The essence of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’s titular hero, played by Simu Liu, is mostly the same as his comic-book counterpart: a martial-arts expert trained in various fighting styles by a father revealed to be a power-mad supervillain. But if Shang-Chi’s backstory and how it induces a moral crisis felt idiosyncratic on the page, here the superhero is rotely defined by the same “gifted kid” impostor syndrome as so many other self-doubting heroes in the MCU, from Star-Lord to Spider-Man. Cole

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Eternals

24. Eternals (2021)

Chloé Zhao’s Eternals does its best to simplify and rework the bedrock of the comic series into something that can reasonably fit into a standalone film. But it’s arguably impossible to introduce a team of superheroes who are unfamiliar even to casual comic book fans and establish the nuances of their long-standing relationship to human civilization and their overarching and underlining conflicts without resorting to one of the most exhausting exposition dumps in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. The film aspires to paint complex, emotionally nuanced relationships between its characters, often via flashback, but every time it does so, there are momentum-shattering effects on the narrative. Cole


The Marvels

23. The Marvels (2023)

Only in The Marvels’s climax, when the heroes are in the same confined area and can thus better calibrate their constant shifts in position, does the action attain a logical sense of movement and timing. By then, though, the greatest potential of visual frenzy has been lost. And yet, something in the film shifts when it reaches the halfway point and begins to bring everything into a focus that’s all but disappeared from the vast majority of post-Endgame MCU films and television shows. Revelations about the nature of Carol’s (Brie Larson) connection to Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), and her extended time away from Earth, complicates our impression of Marvel’s unstoppable might and aloofness. The Marvels foregrounds Carol’s critical on-screen weakness, her emotional two-dimensionality, and finally gives her depth by unpacking why she’s felt so one-note as a character up to this point in the MCU. Cole

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Thor

22. Thor (2011)

With some notable exceptions, the MCU films usually plateau at a glossy but totally indistinct level of mediocrity, and Thor continues the trend of weakly jumpstarting a franchise based on a Marvel comic with an adequate but instantly forgettable origin story. Kenneth Branagh’s film is reasonably well put-together, but it has no internal life, instead feeling like an impersonal, assembly-line product. The film’s most notable feature is that it serves as a continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe set up by the Iron Man movies. Characters from those films pop up during Thor’s main narrative and after the end credits, living up to Marvel’s commitment to populating their films with the same bland versions of perfectly acceptable characters. While Thor is certainly competent, that’s just not enough. Simon Abrams


Spider-Man: No Way Home

21. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

When Tom Holland gets to take center stage in director Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, he does at long last get a chance to put his own stamp on Peter Parker. Mysterio’s revelation forces Peter to operate more as the loner of the comics than the well-supplied Stark subsidiary that he’s been so far on film, and for once there are real stakes to his adventures. Crucially, too, we get an extended view of his fundamental humanity. Yet, as is ever the case with modern superhero cinema, all of this is set aside in a climax that has to bring together the untenably large cast solely for a great dust-up of a battle. Watts is on his third Spider-Man film here, but he still has no real grasp of how to shoot Peter’s lithe, balletic movements or quick-reflex swings and web blasts. It’s nearly impossible to follow the action or even tell each Peter apart as they crisscross each other swinging through the air. Cole

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

20. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

In Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler explores the aftershocks of Wakanda’s decision to reveal itself to the world, tracing how Western—American and European—powers attempt to close the technology gap with the advanced nation by seeking vibranium. If its action is paint-by-numbers, the film does stand out for its depictions of grief. Numerous scenes show the private and public displays of mourning for Wakanda’s king, but it’s Leticia Wright and Angela Bassett who infuse the film with a real pain that’s wholly foreign to the customarily glib MCU. Shuri, already established as impulsive and hot-headed, can barely contain her rage at others and herself, and Wright plays the woman as if she’s almost excited to have an external enemy like Namor onto whom she can project all of her inchoate feelings. Bassett, meanwhile, gives a performance of penetrating, agonizing emotional depth, peppering her stern gazes with tremors of latent emotion that reveal the storm roiling underneath the surface. Cole


Captain America: The First Avenger

19. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

A spectacle of star-spangled superheroics, Captain America: The First Avenger gives sturdy big-screen treatment to Marvel’s square-jawed—and square—jingoistic military man. With director Joe Johnston delivering pyrotechnical action-adventure in a period guise, à la The Rocketeer (which was similarly fixated on its female lead’s buxom chest), this costumed-crusader saga is a capable, if somewhat unremarkable, affair beset by the same origin-story shortcomings that plagued another U.S.-virtue-via-army-weaponry fable, Iron Man—namely, a bifurcated structure in which the introductory first half exceeds, in compelling drama and kick-ass thrills, the latter fight-the-baddies combat. Schager

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Avengers: Age of Ultron

18. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

While Joss Whedon takes considerable strides to make Avengers: Age of Ultron’s narrative feel more nuanced and personal, his few sublime scenes of expressive melodrama are drowned out by the massive amounts of exposition and backstory that make up most of the dialogue. When the talk isn’t about the intricate plot and the characters’ mythology, it’s a whole lot of dick-centric jabs. In cases like the competition over who can pick up Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) hammer, there’s a vague sense that Whedon is in on the joke, but then there’s a plethora of other exchanges that don’t seem so tongue in cheek. The growing relationship between Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner is the tender heart of Age of Ultron, and Whedon clearly thrills in the cheesy but heartfelt melodrama that builds between them. Unfortunately, as the film has approximately another half-dozen or so plotlines to tend to, this section of the story barely makes up a sixth of the narrative. Chris Cabin


Captain America: The Winter Soldier

17. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn’t the worst chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s certainly the most disappointing. The first Captain America film, directed by The Rocketeer’s Joe Johnston, was the one Avengers franchise film to demonstrate an actual stylistic viewpoint. Johnston’s frequently dazzling synthesis of red-white-and-blue 1940s naïveté and pre-Atomic Age paranoia dwelled on the far outskirts of producer Kevin Feige’s Comic-Con sensibilities, and The First Avenger’s status as the lowest-rated Marvel Cinematic Universe film on IMDb only confirms it successfully transcended the template. In contrast, The Winter Soldier joins Chris Evans’s now-thawed veteran in the present day, and the unique charm has decidedly melted along with the bio-frost. Eric Henderson

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

16. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

The Guardians of the Galaxy films, about an adopted family getting through sticky situations with club-footed grace, have largely felt like a reprieve from the expansive form of intertextuality that marks much of the banally self-reflexive titles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In that regard, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is cozily familiar, employing big action pieces in the context of a story that hinges on the Guardians trying to save Rocket (Bradley Cooper) from almost certain death. But that simplicity of scope makes it even harder to understand how the film ends with a runtime of two and half hours, undermining its initial sense of intimacy and momentum with a stop-and-start story structure that by and large exists to make as much room as possible for its characters’ banter. Greg Nussen


Iron Man

15. Iron Man (2008)

There simply isn’t enough exhilarating slam-bang juice to Iron Man, which bogs down in corporate intrigue when it should be putting its energies toward colossal clashes between Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and his nemesis, Stane (Jeff Bridges), whose plan to use Iron Man technology to create—and then sell to governments and terrorists—a more brutal version of the suit only comes to fruition during the climactic moments. As Ang Lee did with Hulk, Jon Favreau recognizes the necessity of entrancing larger-than-life personalities amid special-effects mayhem. What prevents his Iron Man from truly soaring, however, is the inadequacy (in both amount and quality) of its CG-ified artistry, the final payoff for two hours of mounting mechanized-action anticipation being merely a terse, murky, nighttime street scuffle that makes the similar Transformers finale look coherent by comparison. Schager

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Guardians of the Galaxy

14. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t a superhero flick. At its best, it even forgets to be a Marvel movie, casting off corporate shackles to let its freak flag fly. Benefiting from the relative freedom afforded by distance from the franchise mainstream of square-jawed superheroes, it becomes at various points a prison saga, a space opera, a swashbuckling adventure, even a self-aware parody. When it works, the film is a stylish reimagining of myriad influences ranging from Silver Age comics to vintage sci-fi serials, charged with visual inventiveness and Whedon-esque repartee. When it doesn’t, it’s guilty of all the usual franchise pitfalls, from loads of exposition to a numbingly bombastic finale. Abhimanyu Das


Spider-Man: Homecoming

13. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

When being Spider-Man is simply an after-school activity, one that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has to juggle along with quiz bowl, homework, and hanging out with his nerdy pal Ned (Jacob Batalon), Spider-Man: Homecoming seems to recognize that a superhero movie can be something else—in this case, a high school comedy. But even if the film remains funnier and more likable than, say, Captain America: Civil War, it ultimately adheres to the same stultifying genre template from which Marvel has been unwilling to deviate for almost a decade now. By partially demonstrating what a newer, fresher superhero movie might look like, Homecoming ultimately underlines its own genre-defined limitations. Keith Watson

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Captain America: Civil War

12. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

The last Captain America film, Winter Soldier, was simultaneously the most promising and frustrating entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It opened up rarely explored avenues of self-examination in superhero movies by calling into question the value of S.H.I.E.L.D. operating under a vague notion of “the greater good,” only to throw out any actual criticism by revealing the agency’s increasingly fascistic operations to be the result of Marvel’s approximation of Nazis. Anthony and Joe Russo’s Captain America: Civil War operates similarly, confronting the immense collateral damage left by the Avengers across various missions, only to find ways to duck answering its own ethical questions. Cole


Thor: The Dark World

11. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

In Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World, there’s a nighttime memorial sequence as handsome as anything else in the film, with fallen Asgardians floating down a river in burning canoes, and dissolving into starlight absorbed by the sky just as they hit a waterfall’s edge. Naturally, the film culminates with one final melee, but it doesn’t lazily resort to having Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) lay total, requisite waste to a major city a la the insufferable Man of Steel. There’s some rare madness to the genre discipline, be it via contraptions that manically jettison objects through portals, or the actions of a mad scientist played by Stellan Skarsgärd. Superhero movies aren’t going anywhere, nor is their standard, on-to-the-next-fight structure, so it’s heartening to see a gem that grandly and amusingly fills in the blanks. R. Kurt Osenlund

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The Avengers

10. The Avengers (2012)

While The Avengers exhibits exemplary craftsmanship, Joss Whedon hasn’t made a great film. The story seems unwieldy in scale, broken as it is into two parts: an entertaining Rio Bravo variation aboard an airborne aircraft carrier, and an epic “good few versus evil horde” showdown set in and above midtown Manhattan. Longish dialogue scenes are hobbled by an overall air of impatience, as if the sequences of large-scale mayhem somehow mattered more. The second half is a more coherent do-over of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Michael Bay’s bizarro train wreck uses an astonishingly similar inter-dimensional battle as its primary crisis, but while Whedon is a better director, in a strange way he doesn’t seem to have the hubris to lie to our faces that the big CGI circus is supposed to amount to anything, or to sociopathic bad taste—arguably Bay’s redeeming quality. Jaime N. Christley


Ant-Man

9. Ant-Man (2015)

Marvel films tend to peter out as they build to their overstuffed climaxes, but Ant-Man subverts this structure, positioning a raid on a secure military industrial facility as the precursor to the true showdown between Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll), which occurs in a child’s bedroom made gargantuan when the two fighters shrink down and battle on a Thomas the Tank Engine train set. The vacillations between their vicious fight and a macro view of their destruction, of child toys lightly clattering to the ground, foreground the absurdity of this and any other comic-book movie, owning the ridiculousness not as an impediment to the genre’s legitimization, but a crucial aspect of its appeal. Cole

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Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

8. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)

Given the relatively homogenous Marvel Studios style, it’s surprising how many of the studio’s sequels have diverged significantly from their predecessors in tone and look. Typically, the best of these (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man 3) have explored more serious terrain than their preceding films, offering more sober glimpses at the consequences of superhero antics. Writer-director James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, however, is the first instance of a Marvel sequel bettering what came before simply by escalating the scale of its action. Like a live version of one of the classic rock tunes that fill the soundtrack, the film rarely deviates from what came before, and in some cases might even be a bit sloppier, but it offers enough added volume and energy to improve on the original. Cole


Spider-Man: Far from Home

7. Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Spider-Man: Far from Home intuitively understands Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) allure as a character. No other figure so thoroughly epitomizes Marvel’s mission statement of mixing the fantastical with the routine as Peter, who’s dealt with aliens, clones, and alternate universes but was struggling to pay the rent decades before New York was gentrified. Director Jon Watts deftly weaves the epic and the mundane aspects of Spider-Man’s existence throughout Far from Home. No less impressive than the film’s action scenes are Peter’s endearingly awkward attempts to grow closer to MJ (Zendaya), whose introversion magnifies the clumsiness of his flirtations. Zendaya may be even stronger than Holland at portraying the intensity of romantic inexperience: If Peter’s face can be read like a book, MJ regularly falls back on macabre humor and blunt distractions to avoid being open about her feelings. Cole

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Thor: Ragnarok

6. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

The insular interplay between the titles in the MCU practically suggests to fans that they needn’t feel pressure to seek out any non-Marvel films at all. And that sense of wan interchangeability has come through even among the most supposedly leftfield offerings like Guardians of the Galaxy. With one exception. By the standards of its kinsmen, Thor: Ragnarok is the flamboyantly roller-disco entry in an already uncomplicatedly cartoonish side franchise, and not because Taika Waititi’s film contrives to relieve Thor (Chris Hemsworth) of his mangy mane so as to further sex him up. But of course that doesn’t hurt. Amazingly, Ragnarok breaks through the maxi-franchise’s cynical cycles by arguably embracing its own disposability, and reveling in its vintage Williams-pinball mise-en-scène. Henderson


Ant-Man and the Wasp

5. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp is downright giddy with the notion of characters having the power to make a difference, and this energy informs everything from the unabashedly fun action to the supporting turns, especially Michael Peña as Luis, once again stealing the show with his motormouthed monologues. Because dour thematic arcs, apocalyptic stakes, and ironic wit have defined Marvel and superhero cinema writ large for so long now, Ant-Man and its sequel’s old-fashioned vision of superheroism feels vitally, and ironically, fresh. These films are ebulliently funny, visually inventive, and above all passionately committed to the idea that heroism isn’t a burden but an uplifting realization of our best qualities. Cole

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Black Panther

4. Black Panther (2018)

Black Panther is a Marvel Studios production first and foremost, and you’re never going to forget it in light of the pro forma plotting, CG sturm und drang, and gratuitous Stan Lee cameo. Yet the external pressures surrounding the film—chiefly its status as the superhero flick involving and revolving around people of color—have kept the bean counters somewhat at bay. That, plus the fact that Ryan Coogler, who penned the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, is able to give many things here that impassioned, obsessional tinge required of memorable, if not always masterful, art. This is apparent from scene one, a lovingly crafted animated prologue in which N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) narrates the history of the fictional, scientifically advanced African nation of Wakanda, in addition to explaining the origins of vibranium, the metal that has allowed his people to stay hidden in plain sight for generations. (It’s also, as comics fans know, the base element of Captain America’s whip-it-good! shield.) Uhlich


Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

3. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

It’s safe to say that no MCU movie to date has so thoroughly displayed the personality and artistry of its director than Multiverse of Madness. It’s in everything from the cinematography’s use of color and stark lighting choices to communicate mood to the rushing push-ins, shock-laugh zooms, and wild canted angles that have defined Sam Raimi’s style from his earliest days as a filmmaker. At its finest, the film’s artistry perfectly reflects the intensity of Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) navigating endless alternate realms. More importantly, Raimi communicates dread through camera movement, sudden lighting shifts, and editing, running some shots long to set up jump scares and others as a barrage of jolts. There’s consistent imagination here in the animated images and the on-set direction, as well as the integration of the two. It’s also something of a miracle that the film came in at a PG-13 rating, so thoroughly does Raimi test the limits of the MPA’s tolerance of violence and gore. Cole

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Iron Man 3

2. Iron Man 3 (2013)

Shane Black’s unexpectedly galvanic Iron Man 3 is a madly creative, darkly comical, and fiendishly self-aware actioner with muscle to spare. The famed scribe that penned Lethal Weapon, subsequently birthing the boom era of the buddy-cop flick, begins to take apart the accepted boundaries and structures of the superhero film, and if he still employs a variety of familiar genre tropes, he certainly dismantles as many as he indulges. Of course, Black has largely substituted the structural similarities of today’s most lucrative, popularized genre with that of another from a bygone era: the gritty actioners, tossed with gallows humor, that dominated Hollywood from the twilight of Reagan on through the electoral defeat of Bush the First. That the film recognizes that from early on and constantly lashes it with pliable humor gives the film a looser tone and an attitude of bold sarcasm. Cabin


Doctor Strange

1. Doctor Strange (2016)

Director Scott Derrickson works in a robust old-school style that owes more to American swashbuckler films, Asian action cinema, and the Indiana Jones series than to the frenetic, cut-and-paste aesthetic of contemporary blockbusters such as the Russo brothers’ Captain America: Civil War. Doctor Strange is informed with atmosphere and majesty, as well as a sense that Derrickson gives a damn about what he’s doing. The Marvel ecosystem has turned him into a classicist. Derrickson knows that he’s making an oft-filmed tale, rife with the racist, colonialist clichés inherent to the adventure genre, and Doctor Strange’s unusual poignancy resides in how he attempts to transcend these problems without ignoring them. He knows the adventure film is ideologically suspect at its core but clearly loves it, which is an unresolved feeling that haunts many humanists who viscerally adore genre films. Bowen

16 Comments

  1. This is some of the worst ranking I’ve ever seen. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion but Jesus this ranking is terrible.

  2. This is, without a doubt, the worst ranking I have ever seen. The notion that there are no incorrect opinions has been destroyed with this article. You are objectively incorrect.

  3. This is the worst ranking I have ever seen in my life. This is a travesty of a ranking and y’all shouldn’t even be called Marvel fans.

  4. Terrible writing skills. Your hodgepodge grammar and multiple ideas in one sentence is atrocious. I also disagree with the rankings like everyone else here.

  5. The fact you had the guts to put captain marvel,ant-man 3 and thor: the dark world above endgame,nwh, and infinity war.

    this is the worse mcu ranking i’ve ever seen

    • It’s like they’re asking for all the hate and they even put Iron Man 2 above Endgame, which when I saw that list, I lost it when they put it.

  6. I lost it when y’all put my favorite MCU film Endgame near the bottom and y’all had the guts to put Captain Marvel, Iron Man 2, MOM, Dark World, and Quantumania above it.
    my top 5:
    5. Thor: Ragnarok
    4. Guardians of the Galaxy
    3. Avengers: Infinity War
    2. Iron Man 3
    1. Avengers: Endgame

  7. This is, without a doubt, the poorest attempt by one person to leave multiple comments and convince anyone said comments are feedback from many different people. Worst chain of replies known to mankind. Shame be unto you.

  8. I NEVER leave comments on articles, but this is the worse list of MCU film rankings of all time. everyone is entitled to an opinion, but are you even watching these movies??? this takes incompetence to an entirely new level. this is the endgame for real.

  9. it took me a while to even work out which direction this list was supposed to be going.

    i realise everyone has different opinions and tastes. but how did infinity wars and endgame rank so low? and doctor strange as the top one? i feel like the first 2 iron man movies deserved higher scores.

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