by Rubbish-Man
Next week, one of the most anticipated movies of all time finally hits the big screen. For context, Avengers: Endgame has already sold three times the amount of pre-sale tickets than Avengers: Infinity War did before its release. It’s sold THREE TIMES the amount of pre-sale tickets than the fourth most successful movie of all time, which is insane.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the MCU at the beginning, despite being a massive fan of Marvel Comics, but their recent run has been so good that it’s hard to not be excited about the next chapter in the franchise, especially after that ending in Avengers: Infinity War.
Who will die? Will anyone die? Will everyone die? Probably not. But whilst we wait with bated breath to find out, Plop Culture’s Stupid Ross and I each made a list of our favourite films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and compared our sizes to give you the most ULTIMATE MCU MOVIE LIST EVER…
21 – THOR: THE DARK WORLD
As a big fan of Marvel Comics, I was very excited by the prospect of a connected Marvel movie universe, but Phase 1 of the MCU just didn’t do it for me. The franchise just hadn’t found its feet just yet. But when things were finally starting to look good for the MCU following the releases of The Avengers (Avengers Assemble in the UK) and Iron Man 3 (it’s underrated… fight me) they dropped this absolute clanger on us.
What made this dull mess even worse was the exciting prospect of it being directed by Game of Thrones‘ Alan Taylor, but it was proof that what works elsewhere does not work everywhere and The Dark World ended up being the most uninteresting and least fun movie in the series to date. It didn’t help that it starred a clearly bored Natalie Portman whose preferred director of choice, Wonder Woman‘s Patty Jenkins, walked from the project and Portman was forced to return regardless due to contractual reasons.
20 – IRON MAN 2
This was another messy production for Marvel Studios behind the scenes, having replaced Colonel Rhodes actor Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle amidst controversial circumstances and reported clashes between director Jon Favreau and the members of the writers’ room, which has now thankfully been disbanded.
But where Thor: The Dark World had nothing really going for it, this at least had the benefit of featuring Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer. It is proof that even a bad film can be made enjoyable just because of Sam Rockwell’s presence, with Rockwell’s scene with Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko asking him to retrieve his bird being a particular highlight.
has nothing really going for it, this at least had the benefit of featuring Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer. It is proof that even a bad film can be made enjoyable just because of Sam Rockwell’s presence, with Rockwell’s scene with Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko asking him to retrieve his bird being a particular highlight.
19 – CAPTAIN MARVEL
The MCU had been on an incredible run. From Captain America: Civil War all the way up until Ant-Man & The Wasp, Marvel had barely put a foot wrong and expectations were high for the first solo female-led Marvel movie. But it was met with a collective shrug by critics upon release, with many stating it felt more like a mediocre Phase One movie, rather than living up to the standards of the more recent films we have come to expect.
18 – THE INCREDIBLE HULK
Yet another film that was bogged down with behind-the-scenes issues, The Incredible Hulk was a perfectly serviceable, yet fairly bland movie that has somewhat become the black sheep of the MCU. The only reason this film still feels relevant to the series is because William Hurt has begun reprising his role as General Ross in the likes of Civil War and Infinity War. It’s hard to imagine Edward Norton continuing on with the role ever since Mark Ruffalo made it his own, and it’s even harder to consider this movie as part of the MCU’s official canon.
17 – IRON MAN
When Iron Man came out in 2008, I was very excited. Following on from the heels of The Dark Knight that very same year, 2008 felt like we were getting a superhero movie resurgence, rectifying the genre after the dismal likes of Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer and Spider-Man 3.
Whilst this film was certainly better than the two aforementioned Marvel movies, it hasn’t stood the test of time particularly well. It’s bland guitar-heavy score by an underwhelming Ramin Djawadi, who three years later would blow audiences away with his incredible Game Of Thrones score, did not help matters at all, and the film also kicked off the ‘man-in-costume-fights-similar-man-in-costume’ phase of the MCU, which has now thankfully, and finally, ended.
16 – CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
This film is fine but it is yet another movie released during the teething period of the MCU, a phase in which the series hadn’t quite figured out what it wanted to be yet. But the final conversation between Steve and Peggy is heartbreaking, and the final line of the film is the most tragic line in the entire MCU. “I had a date…”.
Hopefully, some sort of time travel trickery will finally enable Captain America and Agent Carter to have their long-awaited date and give them the happy ending they deserve in ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
15 – CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
After Thor: The Dark World, my anticipation for future MCU movies was at an all-time low, and unfortunately, The Winter Soldier didn’t do much to change that. Despite being released to critical acclaim, it was a film that took itself a little too seriously. The tone of the film, accompanied by its bland grey colour palette and a disappointing villain portrayed by Robert Redford, not only turned many viewers away from the franchise but also messed up with Marvel’s best TV show to date, Agents Of SHIELD (fight me), to the point that it took ABC until the show’s third season to properly fix everything that this film set up.
14 – IRON MAN 3
This might be the most divisive film in the MCU to date. Fans were excited to see Ben Kingsley portray Iron Man‘s comic book arch-nemesis, The Mandarin, only to be completely swerved as The Mandarin turned out to be a drug addicted actor named Trevor Slattery. I absolutely loved this twist, and think that Ben Kingsley is genuinely one of the best things to happen to the MCU, as it showed the series to be not quite as predictable as we first thought and was willing to take interesting risks.
It’s a shame then, that Guy Pearce revealed himself to be the “real” Mandarin towards the film’s end. It’s something that they didn’t really need to do and almost ruined the film. Thankfully, this was retconned in the excellent short film ‘Hail To The King‘, which revealed that the actual Mandarin was still out there somewhere. Whether we get to see him or not is a different matter entirely.
After the excellent first Avengers movie, expectations were high for its sequel, Age Of Ultron. Joss Whedon had done the impossible with the first movie and combined 6 very different characters from very different worlds and somehow made it work. Surely, the sequel would be a surefire hit, right?
Not quite. Whilst I personally enjoyed this movie, not everybody felt the same. Still, it’s hard to argue (although you will anyway) that James Spader’s Ultron is one of the most fascinating, and also genuinely funny, villains in the MCU to date.
Although we didn’t get to see all that much of Quicksilver, who is a mainstay in the comic book version of The Avengers, that’s probably for the best. 20th Century Fox’s version of Quicksilver is one of the few things that the X-Men movies did better than the Marvel movies.
12 – ANT-MAN
That being said, the film is mostly harmless fluff that, for now at least, doesn’t seem to have any lasting effects on the MCU overall, although Avengers: Endgame may change that depending on how important the Quantum Realm ends up being.
It’s a shame that we never got to see Edgar Wright’s version of Ant-Man, but what we got instead was fine. Wright’s version of the movie probably would have been a lot more interesting, but unfortunately, Marvel wanted to play things safe, despite hiring an unlikely choice for the superhero in Paul Rudd.
11 – DOCTOR STRANGE
Not gonna lie, I was not looking forward to this film at all. I knew the character mostly from the 90’s animated Spider-Man series and from reading The Infinity Gauntlet graphic novel, and I found him to be one of the most boring Marvel characters, so I was in no rush to see this film.
So it was a pleasant surprise upon finally seeing the film that not only was this not a dull movie, but it was actually pretty damn good (despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s awful American accent).
Getting to see Dormammu in a live action movie was a nice surprise (hopefully we’ll see more) and Michael Giacchino’s score is one of the best soundtracks in the MCU to date.
10 – THOR
Stupid Ross couldn’t wait for this film. Thor is his favourite superhero and he had been banging on about this movie for weeks, so when it finally got released, we all went to the cinema to see it with him. Within 15 minutes, he was fast asleep. At the time, I didn’t blame him.
However, recently, I watched it for the first time since it was released. It was a lot better than I thought it was originally (although Kat Dennings can still fuck off). That opening sequence depicting the battle between Asgard and Jotunheim is Lord Of The Rings worthy, the film has a genuine heart and Patrick Doyle’s epic soundtrack is another contender for the best MCU score so far.
9 – THE AVENGERS
Back in 2008, the thought of a shared Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t even a possibility. All of the well-known characters, such as Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil and The Punisher, were owned by different studios. Even when Marvel Studios they announced movies based on Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk to set up their own series, we still didn’t know how it was all going to play out. It still felt like a pipe dream to all of us comic nerds.
Then they announced The Avengers for a 2012 release, and it still didn’t feel like it was going to work. But along came Joss Whedon. Whedon was an unlikely choice. He was known for writing TV shows such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly, but he had never directed a tentpole summer movie blockbuster before.
Thankfully, not only did it work, but Whedon absolutely smashed it, and because of this risky choice, Marvel are still taking chances on hiring unlikely directors such as Ryan Coogler, Taiki Waititi and The Russo Brothers to bring their own unique visions to the franchise.
When Marvel announced Guardians Of The Galaxy to be their next film after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, even some of the most ardent Marvel fans were confused. Hiring an unlikely choice in Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt to be the film’s leading man, alongside a former wrestler, a green alien lady, a talking racoon and Vin Diesel as a tree, this film was a huge risk for Marvel. When Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill announced himself as ‘Star-Lord’ to Djimon Hounsou’s Korath The Pursuer, Korath asked “who?”, they couldn’t have echoed the audience’s response to the announcement of this movie more accurately.
But what we ended up getting was an incredibly fun, over the top (but in the best way possible) space adventure which launched Chris Pratt to leading man status and introduced the world (outside of the WWE at least) to Dave Bautista, who himself proved to be a comedic revelation.
In 2002, the world was finally treated to a big screen adaptation of Spider-Man and was followed in 2004 with an even better sequel in Spider-Man 2, but after that, things weren’t so great for the wall-crawler. Spider-Man 3 was one of the most disappointing cinema experiences I’ve ever had, with the love and affection poured into the first two films seemingly missing, Danny Elfman opting not to return to score the film and a mishandling of all three villains; Sandman, Venom and New Goblin.
A fourth movie, which was to correct the mistakes and the unsatisfying ending of the third movie, ended up not happening as Sony opted to reboot the entire series instead. Instead, we got Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2. Terrific.
Thankfully, the seemingly impossible happened when Sony decided to let Marvel use the character in their MCU franchise as long as Marvel made solo Spider-Man movies for Sony, and we were gifted with Spider-Man: Homecoming.
I had gotten used to the fact that we would never see the likes of Spider-Man or the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it was quite surreal when Peter Parker finally joined the gang in Captain America: Civil War. Then we got Homecoming, which not only boasted another amazing score from Lost’s Michael Giacchino (returning to the Marvel franchise after Doctor Strange) but a genuinely funny and sweet story inspired by the tone of John Hughes’ high school films of the late 80’s and early 90’s and with a terrific villainous performance of Birdman himself, Michael Keaton.
6: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2
The first Guardians of the Galaxy was a turning point for the MCU. It was the first film that really established the tone that the Marvel films would later become and while it deserves all the accolades in the world for finally putting the MCU on the right path, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is arguably the better film of the two movies.
While the first film introduced us to these characters and had some funny moments, the sequel was easily funnier; realising the full comedic potential of the likes of Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis and Yondu whilst also giving us one of the saddest moments in the MCU in the form of poor Yondu’s death.
Yes Yondu, you are like Mary Poppins (ya’ll).
Black Panther, inexplicitly, was the first MCU film to win an Academy Award of any kind. Despite the incredible visual effects work of previous MCU entries (Thor should have got a Best Original Score nod at least), it took the Marvel Cinematic Universe until 2019, 11 years after the first Iron Man film, to finally take an Oscar home.
Still, you can’t say Black Panther didn’t deserve it. Ludwig Goransson’s incredible score was definitely worthy of the Best Original Score award (even though First Man should have won it if it was actually even nominated… yep, I’m still annoyed by this) and the costume department and production design crew were fully deserving of their trophies too.
Does it deserve its 97% Rotten Tomatoes ranking, therefore making it officially the highest rated superhero movie of all time? I’m not so sure. It wasn’t even the best Marvel movie of 2018. But there is something special about it that sets it apart from some of the lower ranking films on this list
How do you follow up one of the biggest, and most devastating, films of all time? Release a smaller budget sequel for a character that not many people cared all that much for, that barely even addresses the events of previous franchise entry.
But Ant-Man and the Wasp was an absolute joy from start to finish. It vastly improved on the humour from the first Ant-Man movie and the chemistry between Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas had become more natural. Even the villains including Ghost, who you could barely even call a villain, and Sonny Burchill, played by Walton Goggins who is clearly having a ball, were a charm to watch.
It’s a shame that this was released when it was, as most people were recovering from that year’s World Cup and that probably didn’t help the film’s box office chances, but it stands out as probably the most underrated, and one of the most enjoyable, MCU films to date.
3 – CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
For me, this was the film that finally changed my perception of the MCU. Up until this point, I enjoyed some of the earlier MCU films including the first Avengers, Iron Man 3 or Age Of Ultron (tell me I’m wrong, everyone else does) but none of the films in the MCU had really caught my attention in the same way that the 90’s animated shows, the first two Spider-Man movies or the comics had. Then along came Civil War.
I had read Marvel’s Civil War before seeing the film, and it was fine. It wasn’t one of Marvel’s best runs but I was looking forward to the movie none-the-less. What I wasn’t expecting was perhaps one of the most emotional and best-acted movies in the MCU.
The end revelation that Bucky Barnes killed Tony Stark’s parents and the fact that Steve Rogers knew all along provided us with perhaps Robert Downey Jr’s best performance to date. His look of hatred, anger and betrayal towards both Steve and Bucky is intense.
Many people have said Iron Man is the villain of this film, yet I am definitely on Tony’s side. That being said, this is also the first film in which I felt, as a non-American, genuine sympathy for Steve Rogers. Chris Evans’ excellent portrayal of the character turned him from a stereotypical red-and-blue American hero into someone we can all relate to, someone who is having to stay loyal to their friends, despite whatever mistakes they may have made in the past.
Plus it has the introduction of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Paul Rudd turns into Giant-Man during that amazing airport sequence, making it one of the most fun MCU battle scenes to date.
After 10 years, it was all building up to this. Then it turned out that this was building up to Avengers: Endgame, but this provided us with one of the best adaptations of a comic book storyline ever, being partly based on Jim Starlin’s 1991 epic ‘The Infinity Gauntlet‘.
The Marvel films had been accused of not having longstanding consequences, with most of the earlier films ending with a massive beam / object / thing in the sky that our heroes would eventually eliminate, or characters having inconsequential deaths that either didn’t mean anything in the long run (or they just reappear without a satisfying explanation) but this film changed the game.
The ending, in which (spoiler alert) half of the universe died by the hands of the Mad Titan, Thanos, was a truly jaw-dropping moment, especially for those who had not read the original graphic novel and sets up an incredibly intriguing sequel.
Sure, I think most of us sort of know that all of the currently deceased characters will be fine (Spider-Man: Far From Home is coming out this Summer, ffs) but it’s the hows and why’s of those characters’ returns that really matters, and makes Endgame one of the most anticipated films of 2019.
1 – THOR: RAGNAROK
Do you disagree with our list? I’m wiling to be you do, please tell us we’re wrong in the comments below seeing as that is what the internet is for. Thanks for reading (well done if you got this far). Keep checking back for more incorrect lists every single day!
Only one week remains until Avengers: Endgame…
NERDFACE 