As I battle through SAD, I’ve been re-watching a bunch of Marvel films and decided to rank them.
Here it is. The definitive ranking of best-to-worst Marvel Cinematic Universe films up until Quantumania. The TV shows and special presentations have not been included, because there are now so many of them, this list would be longer than my arm if they were included.
- The Avengers
- Can’t beat the OG ensemble film.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- When you get knocked down, get back up again. The Winter Soldier was the surprise hit in a flurry of the blegh sequels in Phase 2 — and from that point forward, Captain America became the Avengers poster boy. The Russo brothers nailed his sequel in such a way that it’s a pleasure to rewatch and catch minute details in action scenes and between characters.
- Captain America: Civil War
- Avengers: Endgame
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- All the Spider-Men together make this film worthwhile. If only Sony hadn’t Sony’d itself earlier.
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Interchangeable with Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s below NWH in my case purely because MoM’s journey into the thriller genre was not for me. Still, a fantastic film worth the watch — if you’re not as much of a chicken as I am, that is.
- Iron Man
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- The relatability of characters going through what amounts to a quarter-life crisis before getting thrown into literal dragonsville makes this a special entry.
- Ant-Man
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Despite its failings, I find myself looking back on this one fondly. This would be the last time we see the Avengers operating as a team outside a battle.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Doctor Strange
- Black Panther
- Captain Marvel
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Avengers: Infinity War
- The Guardians ruined this film for me. It’s so incredibly difficult for me to watch Infinity War because of the cringe.
- Black Widow
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Thor
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Tries to be funny. Realises halfway through that it isn’t. Arguably is just the set-up for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Still fun if you’re a big fan of Tom Holland.
- Iron Man 3
- My favourite Iron Man film and Christmas flick, but if I shoved it higher on this list (between Doctor Strange and Ant-Man and the Wasp), there’d be a riot on my blog. I lament that I seem to be alone in my love for IM3, but I also appreciate what could have been: blatant sexism (selling toys to boys) had been the downfall of not just potential villain Maya Hansen, but supposedly many other female characters in the film, too. Despite this, I still have a soft spot for Tony Stark going back to basics. I do however concede that it turned out overly clumsy in its execution.
- Iron Man 2
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- Fell a bit flat. It’s clearly intended to set up Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, perhaps more so than Loki. Disappointingly, it doesn’t quite hit its mark.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- I just wish these characters weren’t so damn dumb.
- Eternals
- Don’t be fooled: Eternals is almost as much of a bedtime story as Thor: The Dark World in that you’ll be asleep long before you hit the halfway point.
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It tried to take humour from James Gunn and… well… failed. Miserably.
- The Incredible Hulk
- Suffers from sequel/reboot-itis in that it doesn’t know if it wants to be a sequel to Ang Lee’s Hulk or if it wants to tell its own original story. So it decided to do both. It worked out as you’d expect.
- Thor: The Dark World
- Big old-fashioned snoozefest. A good movie to send your loved ones to sleep. Or bore them to death. Whichever comes first.
Deanna Troy 