The definitive ranking of all 36 Marvel superhero films: These are the ones you must see… and the VERY contentious duds picked by a leading expert (and you’ll never guess what comes out top)
professorkamrankhan@gmail.com 
Later this summer, The Fantastic Four: First Steps will launch what the people behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) are solemnly calling ‘Phase Six’. It will start a fresh barrage of films and TV series, all based on characters first published by Marvel Comics, and as the quartet of superheroes, Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing it will star, respectively, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (best-known as volatile cousin Richie in the TV hit The Bear). Their job will be to fight off the planet-devouring cosmic being Galactus (Ralph Ineson, still best-known as boorish Finchy in The Office).
Now, it could be that you don’t much care what happens to planet-devouring cosmic beings and aren’t greatly invested in any of this. But millions of people around the world are, and have been ever since Marvel Studios knocked out their first MCU movie, Iron Man, back in 2008. In that time, the MCU has earned well over $30billion in global box-office revenue, making it comfortably the highest-grossing cinema franchise of all time.
So, whether these movies are your cup of tea or not, we need to take them seriously. That’s why, ahead of the 37th film in the series, I am ranking the previous 36, from best to worst. Last time I did this, with the Bond films, I ended up in your crosshairs. This time, I fully expect to be smashed into infinity. Let me know!
1. Black Panther (2018)
Ryan Coogler’s film is huge, compelling fun, with tremendously charismatic leads in Michael B Jordan and especially Chadwick Boseman, pictured, as King T’Challa, writes Brian Viner
A $1.3billion box-office smash and the best Marvel movie by an African country mile … the country in question being Wakanda, which only masquerades as a struggling Third World nation. In fact it is hugely rich and sophisticated, thanks to its extensive reserves of the mysterious metal vibranium.
Ryan Coogler’s film is huge, compelling fun, with tremendously charismatic leads in Michael B Jordan and especially Chadwick Boseman, as the title character, otherwise known as King T’Challa.
It’s a terrific, old-fashioned action-adventure about two cousins wrestling for Wakanda’s throne (among other things) but, without ever getting preachy, it does not swerve issues of race and white colonialism.
That might be why it was the first superhero movie to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards (losing to a lesser film about race, the unexceptional Green Book). Incidentally, Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis led the non-black cast and, having both featured in The Hobbit trilogy, were cheekily known on set as ‘the Tolkien white guys’. I like that.
2. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Avengers: Endgame, starring Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, stands second, behind Avatar (2009), in the list of highest-grossing films of all time
The Russo brothers went to town with this sequel to the previous year’s Infinity War. Billed as a last hurrah for the mighty Avengers, at just over three hours it remains the longest Marvel movie ever made. Certainly, you need a super-bladder to make it to the end without a loo break.
Yet it does a remarkably good job of holding the attention, with plenty of sparky wit and several spectacular battle sequences as our subdued gang of superheroes bounce back after being vanquished in Infinity War by Thanos (Josh Brolin), the genocidal maniac with the vast slab of corrugated jaw who has rudely erased half of all life in the universe.
Endgame stands second, behind Avatar (2009), in the list of highest-grossing films of all time. It also remains notable for featuring the last appearance by Stan Lee, the dynamic force behind Marvel Comics, who died aged 95 just a few months before Endgame was released, but had already filmed his cameo.
3. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy became the first soundtrack album with no new songs to reach number one in the US charts
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, as befits its grandiose name, can sometimes take itself a little too seriously. Nobody ever accused the so-called ‘franchise-starter’ Guardians of the Galaxy of that.
As Star-Lord Peter Quill, leader of a bizarrely but winningly motley crew of inter-galactic rogues and adventurers (including a tree and a racoon), Chris Pratt is a splendidly irreverent lead and the film rightly made him a star. It did wonders for Dave Bautista’s acting career too.
The former world wrestling champion had appeared in a few films – and even on Neighbours! – but Drax the Destroyer was his breakthrough role. It took three hours every day to apply his full body make-up and he could only remove it by sweating it off in a sauna, but his effort, and everyone else’s, paid off.
The film was a huge hit and the retro soundtrack alone set a record. Featuring David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5 and even 10cc’s I’m Not in Love it became the first soundtrack album with no new songs to reach number one in the US charts.
4. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
This lively origin story, whisking us back to 1941 when Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, was a sickly boy desperate to enlist in the US Army, turned out to be terrific
Chris Evans reportedly declined the title role of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, three times before finally saying yes. He later admitted that he was scared, not only of it being a flop but also of it being a hit. Either way he feared the impact on his career.
‘I can’t believe I was almost too chicken to play Captain America,’ he later mused. Happily, this lively origin story, whisking us back to 1941 when Rogers was a sickly boy desperate to enlist in the US Army, turned out to be terrific.
Evans gets excellent support from Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell, but it’s his movie and he nails it.
5. Thunderbolts* (2025)
Thunderbolts* hasn’t done great box-office business but it is still one of my favourite Marvel movies of recent years, says Brian Viner
Florence Pugh is fantastic as world-weary Russian hitwoman Yelena Belova, rightly taking centre-stage four years after making her MCU debut in Black Widow as younger sister (and comic foil) to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff.
Thunderbolts* hasn’t done great box-office business but it is still one of my favourite Marvel movies of recent years. It’s really smartly written, wonderfully acted, and Julie Louis-Dreyfus, as an evil CIA director, makes a first-class villain.
But it is Pugh’s double-act with David Harbour that steals the show. He plays her semi-estranged proxy father Alexei Shostakov, the retired Russian super-soldier with the mouthful of gold teeth.
Seeing the depressive Yelena for the first time in a year, he grunts: ‘The light inside you is dim … even by Eastern European standards.’ I laughed out loud.
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
If anything the relative lack of CGI is an asset, making Winter Soldier look in some ways like an old-school espionage thriller
A slick sequel to 2011’s The First Avenger, this Russo brothers film bowls along exuberantly and doesn’t suffer at all from the restrained use of computer-generated effects. If anything the relative lack of CGI is an asset, making Winter Soldier look in some ways like an old-school espionage thriller.
Jenny Agutter and Toby Jones lead the Brit contingent, indeed the former gets to beat up Robert Redford, no less, playing villainous Alexander Pierce of the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.
In an interview two years ago with Good Housekeeping magazine, Agutter, then 70, revealed how thrilled she was to step away from the role of Sister Julienne in TV’s Call the Midwife, in order to rough up Robert Redford. Which, it has to be said, is entirely understandable.
7. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Despite the best efforts of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire before him, Tom Holland, pictured, suits the famous skin-tight blue-and-red onesie better than anyone
This film has one of the very best Marvel villains – Michael Keaton’s magnificently mean and menacing Vulture. But the film will always be remembered first and foremost for Tom Holland’s full-scale debut as Spider-Man.
Despite the best efforts of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire before him, he suits the famous skin-tight blue-and-red onesie better than anyone, convincing not only as the web-slinging superhero but, just as importantly, also as his geeky schoolboy alter ego, Peter Parker.
Holland prepared for that side of his role, incidentally, by attending a Bronx high school for a few days. Only one other student was in on the secret, with Holland posing as his cousin. On his last day he did tell a girl that he was really there because he was preparing to play Spider-Man, ‘but she just thought I was a nutter’.
8. The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
The much-hyped follow-up to The Avengers is actually a notch or two better than the original – and the closing battle scene is outrageously spectacular
The much-hyped follow-up to The Avengers is actually a notch or two better than the original. Its extravagance is not always matched by coherence, but that’s nothing new in the MCU.
Loosely, it adheres to the age-old theme of the good monster turned bad, in this case, a rogue robot, the fiendishly powerful Ultron (James Spader), conceived as a global peace-keeping programme only to use all its artificial intelligence to reach the conclusion that humans in general, and superheroes in particular, need wiping out.
The writer and director, as on the first film, is Joss Whedon, who was also one of the lead writers 20 years earlier on Pixar’s glorious Toy Story. So not unexpectedly there are some very funny lines, although he delivers on visuals too. The closing battle scene is outrageously spectacular.
Incidentally, Scarlett Johansson (as Black Widow) was pregnant when filming began, so Whedon had to shoot her scenes first, before the bump began to show.
9. The Avengers (2012)
In the US The Avengers, which stars Tom Hiddleston as Loki, made more than $200million on its opening weekend in May 2012
For a while The Avengers was the third-highest grossing picture of all time. In the US it made more than $200million on its opening weekend in May 2012 and went on to become one of the greatest-ever summer blockbusters.
It’s a wildly enjoyable film in which Tom Hiddleston has a ball as Loki, the dastardly brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), whose plans to conquer Earth are (spoiler alert) nobbled by our resourceful band of superheroes.
In a nice example of art colliding with life, the film was shown in space, at a ‘movie night’ on the International Space Station, at the request of American astronaut Joe Acaba. Despite the obvious review, that it was ‘out of this world’, he rather disappointingly reported back only that it was ‘great’.
10. Iron Man 3 (2013)
This is actually the best of the Iron Man series, in which Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr, shows us a vulnerable side up to and including panic attacks
Jessica Chastain was due to play Tony Stark’s ex-girlfriend, genetic biologist Maya Hansen, in the third Iron Man movie but then pulled out to be replaced by Rebecca Hall.
Chastain has been lined up for other Marvel movies down the years yet has always stepped back, once explaining: ‘I don’t want to be the girlfriend. I don’t want to be the daughter. I want to wear a ****ing cool costume with a scar on my face, with fight scenes.’
Happily, Hall issued no such demands and makes the best of limited screen time. This is actually the best of the Iron Man series, in which Stark (Robert Downey Jnr), rather like Daniel Craig’s James Bond in the previous year’s Skyfall, shows us a vulnerable side up to and including panic attacks.
That’s not what everyone wants even from the mortal alter egos of superheroes, but Downey pulls it off superbly, while director and co-writer Shane Black (who made his debut as a writer on 1987’s Lethal Weapon, and as a director with 2005’s acclaimed neo-noir satire Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) ensures that the film fizzes with energy throughout.
11. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Taika Waititi pulled out all the stops for this third Thor film, starring Chris Hemsworth, it’s a livewire comedy and genuinely funny, Brian Viner writes
With Taika Waititi (director of the uproarious vampire spoof What We Do In The Shadows) at the helm, this third Thor film was always likely to be about as flippant as superhero movies get, but Waititi still pulled out all the stops: it’s a livewire comedy and genuinely funny.
Chris Hemsworth didn’t get much of a chance in the first two films to show off his comic timing, but here he gives it full vent as Thor returns home to Asgard to tackle his conniving brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and terrifying sister Hela (Cate Blanchett).
Waititi gets in on the act, too, hilariously playing a dim alien based, so the Kiwi director once revealed, on Auckland nightclub bouncers he had encountered.
12. Iron Man (2008)
The first Marvel picture was a tremendous success but it had a fraught backstory – not least in the matter of its leading man
The first Marvel picture was a tremendous success, setting the foundations for the monolith that the MCU was to become. ‘It showed the world how great superhero films could be,’ says my son’s friend Ed, the biggest Marvel fan I know.
But it had a fraught back story, not least in the matter of its leading man. Director Jon Favreau was a big fan of Robert Downey Jnr, but the actor’s battle with substance abuse had been waged in the full glare of publicity – and infamously he had also served 15 months in jail.
Casting him was a huge commercial risk, but Favreau stuck to his guns, and Downey rewarded him with a brilliant screen test. The studio suits duly gave their approval, all the casting fell into place, and production got underway.
It’s still an impressive film, a proper blockbuster driven by Downey’s charisma as Tony Stark, the billionaire inventor (apparently inspired by Howard Hughes) who discovers amazing superpowers. And Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow bring their A-games too, never a bad thing.
13. Black Widow (2021)
Scarlett Johansson’s formidable Natasha Romanoff at last gets her own adventure, and certainly makes the most of it in 2021’s Black Widow
Scarlett Johansson’s formidable Natasha Romanoff at last gets her own adventure, and certainly makes the most of it, raising a valid question: why did Captain America, Iron Man and Thor each get three standalone movies before she got one?
Whether or not old-fashioned misogyny is the answer, it certainly raises its ugly head in the narrative. Ray Winstone of all people plays a sinister Russian general (with a slightly dodgy accent, the Eastern Bloc by way of the East End) who believes that women – ‘the only natural resource the world has too much of’ – are only valuable if they can be brainwashed into becoming assassins.
Naturally, he then gets more than he has bargained for from one of them: narky Natasha herself. Aptly, the director is female too: the Australian Cate Shortland was the first woman to direct an MCU film solo.
14. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
This story of a son trying to break free from a tyrannical father belongs more to the Chinese martial arts tradition
It doesn’t sound like a Marvel movie and doesn’t really feel like one, either. Rather, this story of a son trying to break free from a tyrannical father belongs more to the Chinese martial arts tradition.
Nevertheless, it is very much a part of the MCU and a blast pretty much from start to finish, with some superb fight sequences choreographed by Jackie Chan’s Australian protégé Brad Allan – who died suddenly, aged 48, only a month before the film’s release. It is dedicated to him and quite right too, because he oversaw some breathtaking stunt work.
15. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Tom Holland’s second headline outing as Spider-Man is not quite up there with the first but it’s still a sizzling adventure
Tom Holland’s second headline outing as Spider-Man is not quite up there with the first, but with director Jon Watts again at the helm, it’s still a sizzling adventure.
Peter Parker, during a school trip to Europe on which most of his attention is directed towards his sexy classmate MJ (Zendaya, later to become Holland’s real-life squeeze), is persuaded by Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) to pull on his special onesie and team up with Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal in his MCU debut) to take on the scary Elementals. As one critic wrote, ‘it feels like a charming teen road-trip comedy that occasionally turns into a superhero movie’. That’s about right.
16. Thor (2011)
Kenneth Branagh has only directed one Marvel film to date – but his involvement was pivotal in the recruitment of several key players
Kenneth Branagh has only directed one Marvel film to date but what a good one, as Chris Hemsworth breathed thunderous life into the mighty, hammer-wielding crown prince of Asgard.
Branagh’s involvement was pivotal in the recruitment of several key players. It tempted Natalie Portman into playing Thor’s love interest Jane Foster – ‘Kenneth Branagh doing Thor is super-weird … I gotta do it’ – and Idris Elba into taking on the fairly minor role of Heimdall, the watchman of the gods.
Moreover, Branagh helped Tom Hiddleston find the damaged character of Loki by telling him to watch Peter O’Toole as King Henry II in the 1968 Oscar-winning classic The Lion in Winter (which also happened to star Thor’s father Odin, otherwise known as Anthony Hopkins, as Richard the Lionheart).
17. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (2023)
It’s hard not to love the moving tale of Rocket, voiced by Bradley Cooper, who turns out to have been torn away from his childhood sweetheart (an otter)
We could all have been forgiven, when we started watching Marvel films, for not anticipating one in which the tumultuous back-story of a raccoon would play a part.
But then Rocket Raccoon became a Marvel Comics character as far back as 1976, inspired by the 1968 Beatles track Rocky Raccoon. Moreover, Guardians 3 is actually a heap of fun, and it’s hard not to love the moving tale of Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) who turns out to have been torn away from his childhood sweetheart (an otter) while escaping the clutches of a mad vivisectionist known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji).
There are some who might say that this isn’t what the MCU should be about but nuts to them, and besides, Will Poulter hams it up delightfully as the underling sent to recapture the recalcitrant raccoon.
18. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
This bright and breezy sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man, starring Paul Rudd, is bags of fun. Evangeline Lilly is Ant-Man’s new sidekick
This bright and breezy sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man is bags of fun, with fabulous special effects. I liked it a fair bit more than the original. It begins with former cat burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) languishing under house arrest, though soon enough he is commandeering ant armies and cracking endless ant jokes, with a reference to ‘Ant-onio Banderas’ being merely the clunkiest of them.
The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) is his new sidekick, and prior to the film’s release there was much excitement about her being the first female character to share title billing in a Marvel movie, though in truth she is very much second banana as Lang/Ant-Man sets about trying to outsmart a black market arms dealer, played by king of the screen sneer, Walton Goggins.
19. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
The first superhero movie to top $2billion in global box-office takings was big in every way, with a huge cast, including Elizabeth Olsen, uniting the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy
The first superhero movie to top $2billion in global box-office takings was big in every way, with a huge cast uniting the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy in the colossal challenge to stop Josh Brolin’s genocidal Thanos gathering the six Infinity Stones he needs to eliminate half the universe.
In a way the film is too big: too many characters, too much plot, too reliant on special effects. Still, it also offers plenty of pleasures, not least the unlikely spectacle of Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) deploying their superpowers at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station.
Mind you, that’s where I once vaulted the barriers in successful pursuit of a late-night train to Dundee. Miracles can happen anywhere.
20. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Like all the best Marvel films, Civil War never takes itself too seriously. It’s high spirited fun, Brian Viner writes
The third Captain America film directed by the Russo brothers follows on from the events in Winter Soldier, but this time the Avengers face an unusual political threat: should they sign away their independence and become a tool of the United Nations, as embodied by boring men in suits (played by William Hurt and Martin Freeman)?
Some of them including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jnr) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) think they should, others led by Captain America (Chris Evans) and Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) are determined to resist.
Always happy to cite their cinematic influences, the Russos said they borrowed from The Godfather in depicting these ‘family’ differences. Yet like all the best Marvel films, Civil War never takes itself too seriously. It’s high-spirited fun which also gives us our first glimpse of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.
21. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
This sequel to Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is stuffed with so many references to other Marvel films that it takes a true MCU anorak to follow every twist and turn
This sequel to Doctor Strange is stuffed with so many references to other Marvel films that it takes a true MCU anorak to follow every twist and turn.
There’s a fair amount for even fair-weather fans to enjoy, including another fine, committed lead performance by Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular Master of the Mystic Arts.
But it’s really a film for the Marvel faithful, many of whom rate it among their all-time favourites, and are entirely on board with the murderous one-eyed octopus chasing a teenage girl called America (the excellent Xochitl Gomez) through the multiverse.
For me, it’s both too convoluted and too much in thrall to the Marvel back catalogue, but director Sam Raimi, who made his name with the Evil Dead movies, manages to weave in some original horror elements in a film said by many enthusiasts to be the first genuinely scary MCU picture.
22. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (2017)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 introduces a scene-stealing Elizabeth Debicki – as a haughty high priestess, the hilariously po-faced and indeed gold-faced Ayesha
A decent sequel, which introduces a scene-stealing Elizabeth Debicki – Princess Diana in The Crown – as a haughty high priestess, the hilariously po-faced and indeed gold-faced Ayesha, leader of an alien race called the Sovereign who first hire Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and his wise-cracking mercenaries, then turn on them.
James Gunn’s film sometimes strains a bit too hard to be as wacky as the first one, but it bowls along and like the original is full of fabulous retro music. This time the galaxy is guarded to the strains of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain and Sweet’s Fox on the Run, among other golden oldies, which more than makes up for the try-hard lavatorial gags.
23. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
A sequel was as inevitable as the African sunrise – but at two hours 41 minutes the film definitely outstays its welcome
Despite the terribly sad death in 2020 of Chadwick Boseman, who played the title character first time around, a sequel was as inevitable as the African sunrise.
For cynics the key word in the title is ‘Forever’ – at two hours 41 minutes the film definitely outstays its welcome.
At the premiere I sat just behind the footballer Mason Mount, who grew increasingly restless as it wore on towards the equivalent of a third period of extra-time. If he could have decided the plot on penalties, I’m sure he would have done.
But Ryan Coogler’s movie certainly has its merits, and a fair amount of spirited fun. Angela Bassett is marvellous as the Wakandan queen who rejects international pressure to share the country’s coveted metal vibranium, sternly telling the UN ‘I am not a woman who enjoys repeating myself.’ Which is merciful news, frankly, given the running-time.
24. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
No Way Home is a greatest-hits album of a film, really, but it’s too contrived to be a classic
As if our spandexed superhero didn’t have villains enough to battle, in this movie he also has to deal with the fake news media, as Donald Trump might say, in the form of JK Simmons as the vindictive editor of The Daily Bugle, who keeps trying to cast Peter Parker as public enemy number one. So Peter appeals to Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to use his wizardry to make the world forget that he is Spider-Man.
Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were reportedly influenced by the 1946 masterpiece It’s A Wonderful Life in developing this parallel universe idea. But tampering with cosmic reality can be dangerous.
Soon, familiar villains from all over the multiverse start descending, each with an axe to grind, and sometimes worse. It’s a greatest-hits album of a film, really (with turns from both previous Spider-Mans, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield), but it’s too contrived, even by Marvel standards, to be a classic.
25. Captain Marvel (2019)
There’s lots of enjoyable Blockbuster Video-style period detail in the earth sequences, but on the whole Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, feels muddled, and oddly for the MCU, even a little bland
Against the odds, Brie Larson pipped Scarlett Johansson to the honour of becoming the first woman to lead a Marvel movie, and she gets solid female support from Annette Bening and Lashana Lynch.
Larson does a fine job as Carol Danvers, a former US Air Force officer whose memory was wiped out in an explosion and therefore doesn’t know how she came to be living on the distant planet of Hala involved in a scrap between warring alien races the Skulls and the Kree, being mentored by Kree warrior Ron-Yogg (Jude Law). That’s what amnesia can do to you, I suppose.
Anyway, the story is set mostly in the mid-1990s and there’s lots of enjoyable Blockbuster Video-style period detail in the earth sequences, but on the whole it feels muddled, and oddly for the MCU, even a little bland.
26. Iron Man 2 (2010)
There’s too often a nagging feeling in this sequel that the cast are having more fun than the audience in Iron Man 2
There’s a tremendous scene at the Monaco Grand Prix, where weirdo villain Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) launches an attack on his nemesis, Robert Downey Jnr’s Tony Stark. And Sam Rockwell plainly has a hoot as a shady arms dealer, while there’s even a cameo by a certain Elon Musk, pitching an idea for an electric jet.
But there’s too often a nagging feeling in this sequel that the cast are having more fun than the audience. Still, the US PG-13 certificate comes with a warning that iron Man 2 contains ‘swearing, mayhem, bloodshed and sexual innuendo’ and if they aren’t the ingredients for a modestly enjoyable bit of escapism then I don’t know what are.
The screenplay is by Justin Theroux, presenter Louis Theroux’s cousin as well as Jennifer Aniston’s ex-husband. More significantly, he’s a prolific actor, writer and director, though best-known in the wider Theroux family for eating a Styrofoam cup as a child. He’s crammed a lot into his 53 years.
27. Ant-Man (2015)
Paul Rudd is as likeable as ever as the titular diddy-man, a latter-day Robin Hood shrunken by chemicals
Edgar Wright, the British writer-director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, quit the production shortly before filming began citing ‘creative differences’ – that Hollywood euphemism for an enormous barney.
So Marvel hired Peyton Reed (Yes Man), who does an OK job, while Adam McKay (Anchorman) was brought in to gussie up the script. But it might have been better had Wright stayed in the chair, with fellow Brit Joe Cornish as lead writer.
Some of their work remains, but somehow it feels like a film with a troubled history. Paul Rudd is as likeable as ever as the titular diddy-man, a latter-day Robin Hood shrunken by chemicals. But he tries to squeeze just a bit too much juice from his wise-cracking screen persona. By contrast, Michael Douglas as a mad scientist is strangely under-juiced.
28. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Deadpool & Wolverine basically smirks its way through its two hours-plus running-time as Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman drop Hollywood in-jokes by the limo-load
A film can be too glibly self-aware by half, and that’s the mistake this one makes, basically smirking its way through its two hours-plus running-time as Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine drop Hollywood in-jokes by the limo-load.
The many references to Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox (which meant that characters from the Disney-owned MCU could henceforward hook up with those from Fox’s X-Men series, as here) very quickly become tiresome, and Reynolds breaks the fourth wall so often that by the end it’s a wonder there’s any of it left.
Indeed it’s almost a surprise that the famous co-owner of Wrexham FC at no point wears a club scarf, like Eric Morecambe waving a Luton Town placard during his Roman Empire playlet with Glenda Jackson all those years ago. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some funny moments, and Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova is a wonderfully enigmatic baddie, as bald as an egg but much harder to crack.
29. Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Kenneth Branagh’s Thor took some beating, which Alan Taylor’s film fails to do but it has its moments
Kenneth Branagh’s Thor took some beating, which Alan Taylor’s film fails to do. But it has its moments, including an enjoyable cameo from Chris O’Dowd, whose character goes on a blind date with scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) blissfully unaware that her former squeeze was the God of Thunder.
There’s also an amusing scene on the London Underground. But even in menacing facial prosthetics Christopher Eccleston as Malekith is a curiously bland baddie. It’s not his fault, he’s just poorly served by the script, which bizarrely locks up a much better baddie, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), for most of the movie.
Eccleston has since admitted that he regrets taking the role – ‘a miserable experience’ – and has accused Marvel of making a nonsense of the character by leaving much of his back story on the cutting-room floor.
30. Doctor Strange (2016)
So the clue is in the title: Doctor Strange is jolly weird, a kind of a cinematic LSD trip, yet it’s also disappointingly derivative, Brian Viner writes
Benedict Cumberbatch plays a levitating, time-bending surgeon trying to thwart the world-domination plans of another bald baddie, a Buddhist known as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who runs a Himalayan monastery that is basically Hogwarts for grown-ups. Zenwarts, if you like.
So the clue is in the title: Doctor Strange is jolly weird, a kind of a cinematic LSD trip, yet it’s also disappointingly derivative. Instead of invisibility cloaks, we find ‘cloaks of levitation’. Surely they could have tried a bit harder to put more distance between Marvel and Harry Potter?
But I did laugh a lot when, on Dr Strange’s arrival, the Ancient One’s acolyte, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, offers him a scrap of parchment bearing a single word: ‘Shamballa’. The doctor asks if it’s his mantra? ‘No it’s the wifi password,’ comes the reply. ‘We’re not savages.’
31. The Marvels (2023)
The only real marvel about The Marvels is its running-time of well under two hours
The only real marvel about this movie is its running-time of well under two hours. That’s because its theme of girl power combined with its manageable length make it practically precision-tooled to appeal to teenyboppers. All those kids who rushed to see Barbie without knowing it was grown-up satire got a much bigger kick a few months later from The Marvels.
But this notional sequel to Captain Marvel has a decidedly perfunctory plot in which New Jersey schoolgirl Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), as the super-powered Ms Marvel, is whisked off to outer space to fight militant Kree warriors.
Even Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury seems bored by all this, understandably finding little enthusiasm for lines such as ‘It seems the surge has had some residual effect on the jump point.’ I’m pretty sure the AA man said exactly that last time my car broke down, but in a Marvel context it hardly even pretends not to be nonsense.
32. Eternals (2021)
Unfortunately Eternals, starring Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden, is a bit of a dud
Was there ever a writer-director who made two such different successive films as Chloe Zhao, first with 2020’s heart-rending and awards-festooned Nomadland, a study in socio-realism starring Frances McDormand as a middle-aged woman on her uppers, who roams the United States in her van while looking for work …and then with Eternals, about a band of immortal humanoids stationed on Earth with the task of protecting humanity from a bunch of angry lizard-like monsters called Deviants? I can’t think of one.
Anyway, all credit to Zhao for her versatility (and I’m very much looking forward to seeing her next film, the period drama Hamnet) but unfortunately Eternals, starring Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden, is a bit of a dud.
33. Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Harrison Ford plays US President Thaddeus Ross, a wildly unpredictable occupant of the Oval Office opposite Anthony Mackie as the new Captain America
Harrison Ford plays US President Thaddeus Ross, a wildly unpredictable occupant of the Oval Office (where they got that idea from I cannot imagine) whose mind is being controlled by a dangerous megalomaniac as he plots to establish American dominion over a newly-discovered treasure called Adamantium – not essence of Adam Ant, alas, but the world’s most versatile element.
The only person who can navigate a way out of this brewing disaster is Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America now that Steve Rogers has retired. Regrettably, it’s dispiritingly formulaic fare, full of the kind of crashingly expository dialogue that quickly stops you caring whether the President’s inner circle is compromised, or not.
34. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Director and co-writer Taika Waititi got the zaniness levels about right in Thor: Ragnarok but Thor: Love and Thunder positively gurns in pursuit of laughs
Heaven (and Valhalla) knows I’ve sat through enough superhero films down the years that take themselves at least as earnestly as Newsnight. So I’m generally inclined to applaud those that don’t. But sometimes they over-reach.
Director and co-writer Taika Waititi got the zaniness levels about right in Thor: Ragnarok but this film positively gurns in pursuit of laughs, although I will always retain some affection for Russell Crowe’s performance as Zeus, playing the King of the Gods as a kind of prissy, slightly camp Greek-Cypriot hairdresser.
Christian Bale plays a Voldemort-style villain, who, Pied Piper-like, kidnaps all Asgard’s children. But the fact that the abducted offspring include Bale’s own actual kids, as well as those of Waititi, Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman, tells you all you need to know about a movie that too often feels like one huge in-joke.
35. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Alas, defeated is how I felt watching this one, even though at just a whisker over two hours it is one of the shorter movies in the canon, says Viner
Marvel Fatigue is one of the great niggling oxymorons of our time. The blockbusters churned out by the MCU are meant to propel us to the edge of those seats, exhilarated; not make us slump in them, defeated.
Alas, defeated is how I felt watching this one, even though at just a whisker over two hours it is one of the shorter movies in the canon. The comedic one-liners are dreadfully laboured, although the film does contain one wonderfully perceptive line from super-villain, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who observes that he can never tell one Avenger from another, that they ‘all blur the senses after a while’.
In this film I know just where he’s coming from. The action is pretty much all set in the microscopic universe known as the Quantum Realm, and gets very silly – but, sadly, silly in a boring way, not in an engaging way.
36. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
The second MCU movie, starring Edward Norton as the Hulk, is a misfire in so many ways, and never came close either artistically or commercially to matching the year’s earlier release, Iron Man
There are Marvel fans out there who routinely stick up for The Incredible Hulk, and are prepared to argue until they’re green in the face that Edward Norton was a better Bruce Banner (the reserved physicist who turns into the Hulk) than his later replacement Mark Ruffalo. But they’re wrong!
The second MCU movie is a misfire in so many ways, and never came close either artistically or commercially to matching the year’s earlier release, Iron Man (which made more than twice as much at the box-office). Executives had assumed before production began that The Incredible Hulk (already made famous by the 1970s TV show) would be the springboard for Marvel’s future success, not Iron Man, but they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Off-screen, Norton was difficult. On-screen, the script was feeble, the narrative ponderous and the CGI lousy. Where it should be muscular, it’s all flab, making it the worst MCU film by miles.
