After ranking Marvel’s pre-MCU movies and the TV shows, it’s time for the big one.
I will give a score for my first impression from the first time I’ve seen the movie, and my current opinion of the movie after a second or multiple views.
Unlike the previous rankings, in this case I’ve seen all of them when they were first released.
And I fully admit that my status as a lifelong Marvel fan definitely influenced my opinions, because spoiler alert: I like almost everything here.
At the end of the ranking I will track the trend of the “current opinion” score.
Before that, I have to get something out of my system.
Due a combination of the franchise’s success and its longevity (more on that below), at some point it became popular to bash the movies. And while there are several points where the franchise made mistakes that even as a fan I have no problem admitting… is it just me or a couple of the recurring complaints are kind of stupid?
And I’m not talking about the “M-she-U woke propaganda” idiocy (don’t even try to put that crap into the comments). Recurring criticism I’ve seen include:
- “The MCU is sexless”. I’ve never understood this one: characters are explicitly having sex right from the first movie, plus you expect heroes to talk about it while fighting aliens and robots or what?
- “The MCU is just jokey jokes”. It’s not just some movies that take it too far, everything is exactly as light-hearted as the specific movie you hated.
- “The MCU is US military propaganda” doesn’t come entirely out of nowhere, there is some propaganda typical of Hollywood, but one of the franchise’s most widely praised movies is about standing up against the biggest government conspiracy in history AND one of the latest ones has the US President as the bad guy.
- “They should have stopped at Endgame” is especially irritating to me. It’s fine if you want out of a franchise after a satisfying point, but this idea that a story with a definite canonical ending is intrinsically superior to a story that is intended to go on forever cannot die soon enough.
- And my personal favorite: whenever anyone complains that an MCU movie is “the worst movie ever made”, which is just as dumb as any one of them being “the best movie ever made”. If you truly think either of them, you definitely NEED TO WACH MORE MOVIES.
As for the whole “superhero fatigue” nonsense… do you have a good perspective of how long the MCU has been going on, and for how long superhero movies were “gone” when they first fell out of fashion?
The first “Superman” movie was in 1978 and “Superman IV” was in 1987.
The first “Batman” movie was in 1989 and “Batman and Robin” was in 1997.
1978 to 1997 = 19 years.
Leaving aside that it only took ONE YEAR for a new successful superhero movie (“Blade” was in 1998)…
“Iron Man” was in 2008. At the time of this post, there are MCU movies scheduled for 2028.
2008 to 2028 = 20 years
It’s not superhero fatigue. It’s GENERATIONAL TURNOVER from the original fans to new generations! I’m especially mad at comic readers for not realizing this because the SAME thing has happened in comics! MULTIPLE TIMES!!!
*groan*
Sorry about that overly long rant, but it was a long time coming. On with the ranking!
PHASE ONE
Iron Man
Year: 2008
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 8/10
I love this movie. Despite its flaws… the villain is kind of lackluster and Rhodey is just wasted… it really sells you the idea of a superhero, and it takes its time to get you into Tony’s head.
When you read about its troubled production (they were basically writing the script on the fly), it’s almost a miracle it ended up being a great movie.
The Incredible Hulk
Year: 2008
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
I didn’t like Ang Lee’s version, but this one truly felt like Hulk to me. And it’s a shame Edward Norton wouldn’t stick around because he also really felt like Bruce Banner.
Iron Man 2
Year: 2010
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
For a while this was one of the punching bags of the franchise, as apparently a lot of people thought this was a step backwards.
I think it’s a worthy equal to the original. It has a better Rhodey, a good introduction to both Nick Fury and to a lesser extent Black Widow, and much better villains.
And I will never get tired of Tony putting on the suitcase armor.
Thor
Year: 2011
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 7/10
This was quite the risk, as there was extensive debate in 2011 whether the public was ready for the bonkers premises of Thor. Which is probably why a good chunk of the movie is set on Earth.
However it doesn’t feel like “we’re on Earth because Asgard is expensive to film” because they keep cutting back to more fantastical scenes.
Jane Foster is all kinds of bland so it’s hard to truly feel her chemistry with Thor, but a solid introduction to the weirder parts of the franchise.
Captain America: The First Avenger
Year: 2011
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 8/10
You have no idea how much “is a Captain America movie even possible after the War On Terror?” was debated among Italian comic book readers.
Turns out that yes, you CAN adapt Steve Rogers to perfection.
The Avengers
Year: 2012
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 9/10
At my first viewing, when the movie starts kind of slow, I thought “well we can’t expect them to go full Avengers, but it’s neat”.
By the time we get to the New York invasion, it was the first time I truly felt a movie ever captured the joy of reading a superhero dumb fight.
The entire movie industry, including the MCU at multiple times in his history, has been trying to recapture the excitement of that first team-up scene ever since.
PHASE 2
Iron Man 3
Year: 2013
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
Another movie criticized at the time of its release, though not as much as the next one.
While I don’t think it’s as good as the two previous ones, and it does repeat some of the story beats we’ve already seen and the ultimate bad guy is pretty forgettable.
While I think there is a way to bring the Mandarin to the big screen without bringing in the unfortunate implications of his earlies appearances, it would’ve been a bad match for THIS Iron Man so I didn’t mind the switch.
Thor: The Dark World
Year: 2013
First impression: 6/10
Current opinion: 7/10
This is still the punching bag of Phase 2, to the point that you often still hear “well at least it’s not as bad as Thor 2” then discussing later movies.
I think it’s over-hated, in no small part because of having the most forgettable villain of the entire franchise. I’m still not sold on this version of Jane Foster but Thor and Loki’s interactions with their parents really elevate it.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Year: 2014
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
Holy crap is this movie amazing. I’m often skeptical when a movie is singled out from a franchise for being the gold standard, but this one truly does deserve all the praise it gets.
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Year: 2014
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Before this movie came out, the discourse was “People won’t accept the premise of a talking space raccoon, this will bomb and doom the MCU”.
It proceeded to launch one of the most beloved parts of the MCU and utterly transform its comic counterparts.
That’s despite having another very boring villain and mostly wasting Drax, but there’s a reason why this became the template for several movies.
Which will grow to be kind of a problem because it turns out that James Gunn has a style that is hard to keep up with.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Year: 2015
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Another over-hated one. I’ve seen more than one person call this the worst movie they have ever seen, and again: WATCH MORE MOVIES.
Not as good as the first one, Ultron pales in comparison to the comics version, and Quicksilver is killed off in the dumbest way possible.
Easily the dumbest criticism I’ve seen repeated is “Natasha and Bruce falling for each other is out of nowhere”. They barely met in the previous movie, they explicitly spent a lot of time working together between movies, and Natasha has at least two scenes where she details what she likes about Bruce. What did you expect, a dedicated rom-com?
Ant-Man
Year: 2015First impr
ession: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Before this movie came out, the discourse was “People won’t accept the premise of a guy who shrinks and talks to ants, this will bomb and doom the MCU”. It did neither.
It probably wouldn’t have worked without Paul Rudd, but he’s so damn likeable that he sells it.
As a huge Wasp fan I was disappointed she was relegated to a minor role and for skipping Hank Pym, but hey we got Micheal Douglas and Michael Peña out of this.
PHASE 3
Captain America: Civil War
Year: 2016
First impression: 9/10
Current opinion: 9/10
“Age of Ultron” already signaled that having the same title of a famous comic book storyline wouldn’t guarantee a perfect adaptation, so I was hoping this would be better than the abysmal comic… and yep, it totally was.
Great introduction of both Spider-Man and Black Panther, a version of Hawkeye slightly closer to his comics counterpart, and the guts to have an Avengers movie where ultimately the villain won.
I wonder if we will ever see that happening.
Doctor Strange
Year: 2016
First impression: 9/10
Current opinion: 9/10
If there’s a Marvel character that should be nearly impossible to adapt to live action it would be Doctor Strange. The movie doesn’t go as far-out as the comics for the weird dimensions he visits, but it sidestepped it by having a consistent esthetic.
Although I would still have preferred Dormammu’s head to be on fire, come on.
Dumbest criticism I’ve seen: “It’s the same movie of Iron Man” because Stark and Strange have parallels to their character development and as we all know you are only allowed to have one arrogant hero that grows to accept humility.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2
Year: 2017
First impression: 5/10
Current opinion: 7/10
I was very disappointed in this one the first time I saw it, as I felt that it went overboard with the humor. I’ve since revalued it, but it’s still the weakest one of the trilogy for me.
I think Star-Lord’s character development works way better than Rocket’s here, with both the relationship with Ego and Yondu doing the heavy lifting.
Drax is still wasted, Groot is as well to a lesser extent, but I certainly didn’t expect Nebula to grow into a compelling character despite being one-note in the comics. And I like comics Nebula!
By contrast, I don’t mind Mantis having absolutely nothing to do with comics Mantis since I’ve never liked comics Mantis.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Year: 2017
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 9/10
At the time of its release, the best Spider-Man movie after Spider-Man 2.
As tired as I am of high school Spider-Man… seriously, he wasn’t in high school that much in the comics, can we please stop treating it as essential… this was a great high school Spider-Man.
I was skeptical of Zendaya’s MJ, but despite being very different from the comics I had no trouble understanding why she and Peter would fall for each other.
I still would’ve preferred her to dye her hair red, come on.
Micheal Keaton blows it out of the park with his Vulture; controversial opinion maybe, but I like him much better than Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin.
Thor: Ragnarok
Year: 2018
First impression: 5/10
Current opinion: 7/10
I didn’t like this one the first time I saw it, as the tonal shift with the previous Thor was too much for me. But on repeated viewings I saw what Taika Waititi was going for.
I still think there’s a couple of moments where he goes too far with the comedy, but the sheer sense of adventure does pull it through.
And if you pay attention the underlying Hela plot is pretty damn serious.
Black Panther
Year: 2018
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
Yeah there’s a reason why this became a cultural juggernaut.
The worldbuilding is even better than several Black Panther runs, Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan deliver an amazing performance, and the script is really solid.
Too bad we were robbed of Andy Serkis doing motion capture for the living sound version of Klaw.
Avengers: Infinity War
Year: 2018
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
Perhaps the most enduring moment of watching MCU movies in theaters is how the room fell completely silent when the credits rolled, you could hear a pin drop. Very surreal.
Talk about a colossal gamble!
The dumbest criticism I’ve seen isn’t from THIS movie, but for Avengers: Doomsday because people compared Doctor Doom being the new villain with “Thanos had been teased for years, we knew who he was by the time we reached Infinity War”.
We knew Thanos existed and as after magic stones. That’s it. The most he did before this move was sitting on a chair. And while TECHNICALLY it’s more that Doom has done, come on.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Year: 2018
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Keeping what worked in the first movie but adding a good villain and finding a role for Wasp.
Clearly we found a working formula and Paul Rudd is nearly immortal so we can just keep getting one of these every once in a while without ruining the franchise, right?
Captain Marvel
Year: 2019
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
I have a theory on this movie: 95% of the people who made hating it their only personality trait didn’t actually watch the movie but just YouTube videos of people bashing it.
It’s fine. Kind of shoots itself in the foot by having a protagonist who doesn’t know who she is for like three quarters of the movie, so Carol is not even Carol for most of it.
Listing the dumb criticisms I’ve seen would make this entire post twice as long, but a less frequent one was that Captain Marvel is “too powerful”.
Leaving aside that she’s just one of the very few movie heroes who is kind of close to the comics version while most of the others are nerfed… why don’t I see the same complain with movie Thor who is about her equal or movie Doctor Strange who can literally rewrite history?
Avengers: Endgame
Year: 2019
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
As a Legion fan, I was extremely worried when we reach the “five years later” time skip.
And that’s still linked to the only part of the movie that I have trouble accepting: not erasing the blip from history.
While a couple of movies and TV shows have explored some of the consequences, it’s REALLY hard to accept Earth would be pretty much the same after half of its population disappeared for five years.
I also have trouble with how it’s set up: Tony Stark is adamant not to erase those years because he doesn’t want to erase his daughter. Which is laudable until you realize that this means that in order to keep one person happy he’s forcing literally billions of people to go through the worst trauma of their lives.
Well he IS a billionaire after all.
But those are all nitpicks. If this movie was 2 hours instead of 3 hours long, I would 100% have watched it in theaters a second time (something I have never done).
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Year: 2019
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
Obviously I had little doubt that Mysterio would turn out to be the villain, but HOW he turns out to be the villain was a genuine surprise.
Bold choice to move Spider-Man out of New York for an entire
movie. Unfortunately it results to Peter only having meaningful interactions with MJ, as the rest of the high school cast (including Ned) is pretty wasted here.
PHASE 4
Black Widow
Year: 2021
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
This was definitely screwed over by Covid: not only it lead to the movie never going to theater, but also coming out 2 years after the last MCU movie.
It was fine, mostly thanks to the interaction between Natasha and her family.
I didn’t mind Taskmaster, it made sense for this version and there’s nothing preventing the appearance of a comics-accurate Taskmaster later on.
Especially since apparently everyone turned out to be a superfan of comics Taskmaster after this, something that I found more than a little suspicious.
Dumbest criticism, even by critics that I normally respect, “Why even bother watching this when we know she dies in Endgame”.
Yeah because the only thing of interest in an action movie is whether the character survives in another movie.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Year: 2021
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 7/10
I barely know comics Shang-Chi so I didn’t know what to expect. There were several pleasant surprises: Simu Liu is great, and I loved Awkwafina despite fully expecting to hate her character.
Tony Leung’s performance was well worth the Mandarin fakeout in Iron Man 3.
Had the movie kept the same tone and energy of its first half (that bus fight is INCREDIBLE), I would have ranked this higher.
The second half when we get to the magical side of things isn’t at the same level though, which in retrospect brings it down.
It also has nothing to do with comics Shang-Chi, but not caring much for comics Shang-Chi that wasn’t my problem with the movie.
Eternals
Year: 2021
First impression: 9/10
Current opinion: 9/10
Before this movie came out, the discourse was “People won’t accept the premise of immortal superhero gods, this will bomb and doom the MCU”.
And while it didn’t bomb, it didn’t do as well as planned… turns out that people didn’t accept the premise, not helped by the fact that this was near the height of MCU hate.
A lot of the criticism is valid: this WOULD have benefitted from being a TV series or from having a smaller cast. And as discussed in the Eternals retrospective, I totally get fans of the comics expecting a more faithful adaptation.
I still love this movie and still believe it will be considered an underrated classic at some point.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Year: 2021
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
Not being a huge fan of the Raimi movies, I didn’t get the same level of absurd hype that propelled this one to a huge success.
Still a good movie but a bit underwhelming for my tastes, but man do Aunt May’s fate and the ending hit hard.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Year: 2022
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Being in the “everyone must hate the MCU” era, this got its fair share of critics in addition to the Scarlet Witch superfans mad at her being the bad guy.
Most of which is all kinds of dumb considering people keep forgetting Wanda was corrupted by the Darkhold throughout the whole movie!
I’m also disappointed that everyone keeps talking of Wanda and the Illuminati scenes while forgetting this one has some of the most creative magic I’ve seen… why does nobody talk about the scene where Strange fights by summoning magic notes from a music sheet or where he puts his mind into a dead alternate version of himself wearing a cloak made of zombies!?
Thor: Love and Thunder
Year: 2022
First impression: 6/10
Current opinion: 4/10
Remember when I said I liked almost everything here?
Welcome to the “almost”.
This is the best possible example of how sometimes studio interference IS a good idea, because this is the most Taika Waititi movie ever imagined… and it turns out you can have TOO MUCH Taika Waititi.
His trademark is the juxtaposition between silly and serious, which I normally enjoy (Peter David wasn’t one of my favorite writers for nothing) and while I did grow to appreciate the balance he reached with Ragnarok… this didn’t work.
This COULD have worked if it associated Thor’s love troubles with a light-hearted storyline: it’s not like comics Thor lacks those!
They went with both the God Butcher story AND the “Jane’s cancer” one, and both are among the darkest Thor has ever done!
I initially had a higher opinion because the God Butcher part of the movie, despite having next to nothing to do with the comics version, isn’t bad at all. But the tonal mismatch with everything else is just awful.
The only exception is the final fight: that’s the ONLY moment in the entire movie where the two tones work great against each other.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Year: 2022
First impression: 8/10
Current opinion: 8/10
Talk about a hard act to follow, especially when you’ve lost your star.
I think the movie pulled through the impossible, giving a heartfelt in-universe goodbye without forgetting to tell its own story. While also introducing a worthy adaptation of Namor, which isn’t easy on itself (especially since Aquaman already did Atlantis).
PHASE 5
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Year: 2023
First impression: 7/6
Current opinion: 7/6
By this point the MCU hate had reached its peak, and it happened with one of the weakest movies.
I don’t think it’s as bad as its reputation, but the movie certainly didn’t do itself any favors by completely switching gears from the previous ones… this one doesn’t FEEL like an Ant-Man movie in the slightest.
Still, Kang was a solid enough villain and the “he was defeated by ants” criticism was just dumb… he wasn’t defeated by regular ants, he was defeated by a swarm of giant-sized super-intelligence heavily armed ants. The fact that this isn’t in the top five weirdest things that happen in this movie is a detriment to some, but I do love me some Silver Age-y nonsense.
Despite my defense over his showing, however, introducing Kang in this movie was a major misstep that would probably have ruined his changes as the next Big Bad even if the actor didn’t reveal himself to be a terrible person.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3
Year: 2023
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
James Gunn’s MCU swan song (for now) delivers a heartfelt gut punch that even redeems the aspects of previous movies that I wasn’t crazy about, as both Drax and especially Mantis reveal a lot of hidden depths.
I would’ve preferred if they used a different villain from the High Evolutionary since they turned one of the most complex anti-villains into a complete monster, but man was he entertaining.
The Marvels
Year: 2023
First impression: 6/10
Current opinion: 6/10
Before this movie came out, the discourse was “People won’t accept to watch other TV shows before watching this, this will bomb and doom the MCU”.
And it proceeded to… actually yeah, this one did bomb.
Although I don’t think it was entirely its fault: it was screwed by the actor strike, meaning this was barely promoted.
Not that it would have helped much: despite some good chemistry between actresses and Iman Vellani’s enthusiasm being contagious… the villain is just as interesting as Ronan and the finale comes out of nowhere.
In the movie’s defense, you absolutely do not need to watch either Wandavision or Miss Marvel to watch this.
Still entertaining and well-made enough not to be a complete waste of time, but this is “Meh: The Movie”.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Year: 2024
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
I wasn’t as crazy about this as apparently most of the public. Deadpool’s humor has started to overstay its welcome after so many imitations, and at points it’s a bit too mean-spirited… certain scenes seem to be making fun at whoever was enjoying the MCU, which is particularly weird considering that others are a heartfelt love letter to fans who enjoyed critically panned movies from previous Marvel properties.
Fortunately for the movie, the latter is more prevalent.
Captain America: Brave New World
Year: 2025
First impression: 6/10
Current opinion: 6/10
Had this movie not given away its biggest plot point in every single trailer and promotional material, it might have had a chance.
But it also had the misfortune of having politically charged themes at the worst possible real-time moment, and the responsibility of keeping up with critically acclaimed Steve Rogers movies.
I place this firmly in both the “overly hated” and “fine but unimpressive” categories.
Thunderbolts*
Year: 2025
First impression: 7/10
Current opinion: 7/10
At the time of this review, this was the movie that kicked off the “Marvel is back” discourse and was almost universally praised.
A bit too much to my tastes, because while it’s definitely a good movie I wasn’t truly blown away at any point… I didn’t think it was doing anything THAT much better than what the MCU had been doing for a while.
PHASE 6
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Year: 2025
First impression: 10/10
Current opinion: 10/10
It was a long time coming but someone finally, FINALLY figured out how to do an actual Fantastic Four movie. It just oozes personality, creativity and boundless love for the source material for its entire runtime.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Year: 2026
First impression: 10/10
At the time of this post, I haven’t had the chance to view it a second time.
Everyone loves this so much that it’s currently the second highest-grossing MCU movie (after Endgame) and the third highest-grossing movie of all time (unadjusted for inflation).
It certainly FEELS the most Spider-Man movie since… kind of ever.
Brilliant script, with an unexpected bonus. As a lifelong comic book reader, it’s really hard for a superhero movie to surprise me… but for most of this movie I had absolutely no idea where it was going, and in a good way!
Without spoiling it, the “V-MAX” reveal is one of the best handled twists I can remember.
That is certainly a lot of movies, but the MCU movies were not as frequent as it’s often remembered.
With the exception of 2018 and 2021 where there were 4 MCU movies, for the vast majority of its history (including 2026 where I’m including Avengers: Doomday) there were only 2 movies per year.
It’s definitely a combination of being released not only in the same years of OTHER superhero franchises, but also together with several TV shows.
This was mostly due to Covid screwing up the release dates, as not all of the shows were supposed to be aired so close together (look at that 2020 spike!).
If you add MCU movies and TV shows, the amount of media doubles.
And by taking into account the number of movies over the years… this is my personal ranking of all MCU movies (adding up the scores and dividing them by the number of movies per year) up until Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
So even a superfan like me definitely sees the decrease in quality, despite finding the whole doomerism laughable.
