With the release of Captain Marvel, we now have 21 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One can look around on the Intertubes and find all sorts of force-ranking of worst-to-best of those films. I figure I should probably do something similar to that.
That said, I hate force-ranking, both because it lacks gradation and because my rating of something has a certain plus-or-minus on any given day or viewing. So instead, I’m going to lump these films into four tiers. Even here, I can be swayed, or can appreciate that a given movie is hardly a uniform blessing or curse — Thor: The Dark World is overall a plodding disappointment, except for any scene where Loki is on-screen.
So, here we go, the movies (I’m leaving out TV/streaming service shows) with release year and MCU “Phase”. There’s no particular order within any given tier, and keep in mind that, even with this ranking, I lurves ’em all.
FOURTH TIER – Problematic, despite some good moments.
Iron Man 2 (2010) I
Iron Man 3 (2013) II
Thor: The Dark World (2013) II
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014) II
THIRD TIER – Entertaining but not memorable
Incredible Hulk (2008) I
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017) III
Captain Marvel (2019) III
SECOND TIER – Perfectly respectable, enjoyable, noteworthy, and well-done
Doctor Strange (2015) III
Ant-Man (2015) II
Avengers: Infinity War (2018) III
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) I
Captain America: Civil War (2016) III
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) III
Thor (2011) I
FIRST TIER – Exemplify (in a variety of ways) what a super-hero movie can be
The Avengers (2012) I
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) II
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) III
Iron Man (2008) I
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) II
Black Panther (2018) III
The only one not listed above is Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) III, which, for a variety of unessential reasons, I haven’t yet watched.
Feel free to critique any given rating. This is my opinion, obviously, and I would expect anyone else’s mileage to vary.
FOURTH TIER – Problematic, despite some good moments.
Iron Man 2 (2010) I
Iron Man 3 (2013) II
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014) II
Black Panther (2018) (Because Killmonger was the hero, and the CIA is evil not good)
THIRD TIER – Entertaining but not memorable
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018) III
SECOND TIER – Perfectly respectable, enjoyable, noteworthy, and well-done
Doctor Strange (2015)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)
Thor (2011)
FIRST TIER – Exemplify (in a variety of ways) what a super-hero movie can be
The Avengers (2012)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Iron Man (2008) I
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014)
Black Panther (2018)
Ant-Man (2015)
HAVE NOT SEEN
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Captain Marvel (2019)
@Stan –
HAVE NOT SEEN
Thor: The Dark World (2013) – A dull mess, except for those moments when Hiddleston’s Loki is on screen (which is pretty frequent) at which point it becomes marvelous. Unfortunately, that’s not what the movie is about.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – A bit too light-hearted for my tastes, but enjoyable for the most part.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) – Very much redeemed the whole concept of a Spider-Man movie.
Incredible Hulk (2008) – Barely an MCU movie, it’s a decent if somehwat plodding Hulk movie.
Captain Marvel (2019) – Recently reviewed elsewhere. 🙂
I think all of the above are worth watching at least once.
I forgot Ant Man & The Wasp, which is a Second tier for me since I enjoyed it quite a bit.
We have it, just haven’t watched it.