The MCU is perhaps the greatest ongoing saga of films of all time. Bold statement, but with only James Bond and the Carry On movies in the same ball park of number of films, the amount of great films in this series is staggering.
As many people have before, we will now rank all the films (to date) in order from worst all the way up to best. And to be clear on this, every single MCU film is enjoyable and whilst there are some that are incredible, there are some that don’t meet that same level. And of course this is just an opinion. If you want to get involved with the discussion and debate which is the best MCU movie check out our weekly Geek Battle show on the Extreme Improv Xstreamed YouTube Channel! But for now, let’s rank the MCU!
Thor The Dark World
Another adventure for Thor who has developed more since joining the Avengers. This film has a weak villain and whilst still loaded with plenty of action and humour, it’s on the ‘if I have to skip any MCU movies, which one should I skip?’ list.
Iron Man 2
Many of the follow up movies in the MCU are felt to be weaker than their character’s origin stories, and Iron Man 2 is no different. This was a film where we were first introduced to Black Widow and Nick Fury got his first non cameo run at things, so it’s important in that sense, but again a weak villain and weaker plot than the original hold this back.
The Incredible Hulk
The second film in the MCU is an interesting one. Perhaps the most skippable of any MCU film as it’s the one that for the longest time has had the least links to what has followed. This is of course due to a combination of it being a Hulk branded movie which means the rights are still somewhat tied to Universal and not fully in the Disney grip, and also due to it starring Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, who was replaced with Mark Ruffalo after this. The Multiverse of Madness may explain this as a different dimension, and the Abomination returning adds some links along with General Ross having appeared a few times since this film. Still a great take on Banner by Norton and the relentless action make this an enjoyable if mindless action flick.
Iron Man 3
A fun movie, but again the villian that not only lets us down, but is perhaps the biggest change to the comics that the MCU did on screen. Eventually Marvel would fix their Madarin issue, but we still remember. And whilst Robert Downy Jr is great as Tony Stark this film does what so many super hero films do when they run out of ideas and that is have a long stretch of the story where the hero doesn’t have their powers. Good film, but just not great.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel is a good film, but perhaps only in the middle range of character debuts. Fun and lots of action, but the 1990s setting perhaps isn’t used as well as it could have been, and it does raise a few questions as to why Nick Fury only waited until Avengers Infinity War to summon the world’s strongest protector. Captain Marvel has a strong lead character and also does a lot to set up the Skrulls who will play a bigger role in Phase 4 of the MCU.
Thor The Dark World
After the tech of Iron Man and the science monster of Hulk, we went full fantasy in Thor. Playing like a Shakesperian classic this showed how the MCU could have many different tones and flavours. This film also introduced us to the MCU’s greatest villian in Loki and really the only major thing that lets it down was bleaching Chris Hemsworth’s eyebrows!
