All MCU Movies and Shows Ranked: Part 1 (31–21)
I’ll admit it. They got me. I was innocently scrolling through twitter and I happened to come across this Mashable article ranking all of the MCU movies. “Great!” I thought, “I love the MCU! Surely this will 100% align with how I’d rank the movies!”
I was wrong. In fact, after I read the list I was incredibly frustrated.
I expect some minor discrepancies with how I see things when reading these lists, but this was just objectively wrong.
There is usually some consensus on how the tiers of MCU movies shake out. No one likes Thor: The Dark World no matter how hard Endgame tried to redeem it, and Thor: Ragnarok and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will always be near the top.
I was going through the list, cataloging my minor disagreements when I got to number 13 on their list. Check this bullshit out…
They might as well have kicked my dog. THIRTEEN? You go straight to hell, Mashable!
I was so incensed that I decided to take a page right out of the Bender Bending Rodriguez playbook….
By the way, this should go without saying, but I’m going to spoil the fuck out of some movies and shows. If you aren’t up to date, why are you even here? I appreciate the click, but for real, go catch up and come back.
First, I had to decide what I was going to include in my list. This seems like it should be straight forward, but recent developments in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer have muddied the waters a little bit. So let’s set some ground rules…
This list includes the 27 released films and 4 live-action Disney+ shows that have finished up their runs. This means a few things…
- No Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies. I know they have crossed over into the MCU now, but those movies take place in their own universes and don’t make it on to this list.
- No Venom or Morbius. See above. Also Sony can’t be trusted.
- No Netflix or ABC shows. I know Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin are in the MCU now, but nothing so far really suggests that they are the same versions/variants of the characters that were on the Netflix show. This could absolutely change later, and if it does, maybe I'll update this list. Also, the MCU has been ignoring Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter forever.
- No FOX X-Men movies. We all saw the back of Patrick Stewart’s head in the Dr. Strange trailer, but that doesn’t mean any of that actually occurs in the MCU timeline. If anything, it’s likely still a different universe just like the Sony films mentioned above.
- Deadpool is also out. Deadpool 3 might end up being in the MCU but we’ll see what that does retroactively to Deadpool 1 and 2.
Let’s get to the actual list. To make sure this post doesn’t go on forever, I’ve split it into thirds. So without further ado, the rankings.
Incomplete: Moon Knight and What If?…
Ok, maybe a little further ado. Moon Knight obviously gets an incomplete grade since as of writing this only 3 of the 6 episodes have aired. I’m definitely digging it so far, but unless some wild shit happens in the back half of the season it will probably fall somewhere in the middle third of this list.
What If?… gets this grade because I don’t know what else to do with it. Several of the episodes were excellent. Several of them…well…weren’t as excellent. We’ll see what Multiverse of Madness does for this show in hindsight since the trailer seems to show the movie lifting things directly from this show.
31. The Incredible Hulk
Inconsequential is about the only word that really sums this film up. This came only 5 years after a different Hulk movie, and was somewhere between a reboot and sequel. The movie starts with Bruce Banner already being the Hulk, and a story that is already in progress.
The result is a forgettable movie, a re-cast Hulk, and Thunderbolt Ross re-appearing later with nary a mention of this movie. Barring something unforeseen it will be holding down the last spot for as long as the MCU exists.
30. Thor: The Dark World
This movie only beats out The Incredible Hulk due to actually having connections to the rest of the MCU.
This movie basically made Natalie Portman quit the MCU for a decade, and almost drove Chris Hemsworth out as well.
It has the appearance of the 2nd Infinity Stone to show up in the MCU, but that still doesn’t ramp the stakes up nearly enough here.
Also the Dark Elves look like fucked up Shy Guys. It’s a bottom tier movie with a bottom tier villian
Like I said, Endgame tried like hell to redeem this movie, but it keeps it’s place near the bottom of any MCU list.
29. Eternals
I actually feel bad about this one. I enjoyed Eternals for what it is, and I also think that this ranking might actually change for the better in the future.
Eternals does a lot of really good things! It also just does a lot of things. It’s cool to see the way that the Eternals shaped human progress and mythology across millennia in the MCU, and Kit Harrington and Richard Madden have to say ‘Sersi’ a lot! That’s fun!
However, this is a ton going on across the 3 hour run time of this movie including introducing about a dozen brand new characters not including celestials.
I definitely think that this is definitely setting up some larger things in the MCU whether it’s to do with the Celestials, The Black Knight, and Blade, but 2 of the 3 were really set up in the post credits tease…
28. Iron Man 2
I like this movie a lot. That doesn’t mean it’s very good. However, I’m a sucker for Tony Stark and based on the good parts alone I have bumped this as high as I can.
First the good stuff. More Tony Stark is always good, Sam Rockwell is always good, and if we are being honest Don Cheadle is an upgrade as Rhodey.
We also get the first appearance of Natasha Romanoff! It’s not handled great, but 2010 was a different time.
This movie is also kind of a mess. Mickey Rourke spends the entire movie making choices, they sort of half ass a Demon in a Bottle story, and Tony Stark spends half the movie hitting on Black Widow even though he ends the movie basically in love with Pepper Potts. Also, the final Stark Expo set piece is great up until they actually fight Vanko, and then it ends with a thud.
Also Elon Musk is in this movie. Fuck that guy.
The movie is a mess, but it’s a rewatchable mess. To this day I keep my fingers crossed that Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer makes his way back to the MCU. Trevor Slattery and Abomination have both come back so anything is possible!
27. Thor
This movie is much better than it gets credit for being due being put up against the Iron Man and Captain America debut films. This is a perfectly cromulent Thorigin story, and introduces us to a top tier MCU villain in Loki.
The end fight against the Destroyer could honestly be a little better, and the GCI overall is a little lacking, but then again it was 2011 so I can forgive some of the technical stuff. It’s also way more fun than its sequel.
Those blonde eyebrows though. Woof.
26. Black Widow
I’ve shuffled the next five listings around too many times even while writing this list, and Black Widow drew the short straw here for one big reason.
Release Timing.
I can deal with stuff like how they muted Taskmaster to give the movie a twist, but the fact that this movie came out after Endgame really does knock it down a few notches.
If this movie had actually come out between Civil War and Infinity War when it was set then it would have been way more affecting.
There are a lot of great things about this movie. Natasha and Yelena have excellent chemistry, and I actually like David Harbour a ton in this! It works a a spy thriller, and I just wish we didn’t know the end of the story before we saw this movie.
The movie gave us Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova though, and my only regret is that the timing of this movie deprived us from seeing Yelena and not just her vest (and its pockets) in Infinity War.
25. Iron Man 3
My Tony Stark bias is showing again. I can’t help it though. They made a Shane Black Iron Man movie. I like Shane Black, and I like Iron Man. Sue me.
The main complaints here are the Mandarin twist, and the fact that there isn’t enough actual Iron Man.
- Trevor Slattery has been redeemed, and…
2. Whatever this movie has like 40 Iron man suits in it.
Tony’s entire relationship with the kid is hilarious, and so is the scene where Tony and Rhodey bust in on Trevor to find out he isn’t actually the Mandarin.
The kidnapping the President stuff is a little overwrought, but overall this movie is fun, and a nice change of pace style-wise for the MCU due to Shane Black’s influence. No regrets putting this here.
23.(Tie) Ant-Man and Ant-Man and The Wasp.
These are both incredibly fun movies, but they are incredibly hard for me to separate for this list’s purposes.
It’s impossible to have a bad time watching Paul Rudd, and Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas are also great in these movies.
I think the sequel gets the edge here if I had to pick one, but I’ll take any excuse to hear Michael Pena recap a series of events.
The only reason they get shuffled down the list a little is because these might be the lowest stakes MCU entries that don’t happen on Disney+.
Speaking of Disney +…
22. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier
Our first Disney+ show! I originally had this a few slots lower on the list, but I actually remembered how much fun I had watching this show when going through the Google images.
The buddy cop vibes between Sam and Bucky, Zemo, Madripoor, the exploration of what it would mean for Sam to pick up The Shield. There is a ton of good stuff in this show!
We also got the return of the Dora Milaje, the debut of Isaiah Bradley and his grandson (Young Avenger watch!), and the wonderfully dickheaded John Walker.
I absolutely despised John Walker during this show which meant it was working. I was actually offended when the marching band played him onto a football field with “Star Spangled Man with a Plan.” That is Steve’s song you god damn impostor!
There is some stuff that didn’t really work. Sam’s cap suit looks a little wonky despite it being comic accurate, the Sharon Power Broker twist is what it is, and Sam tried to solve racism with a speech in the finale the same way Rocky tried to end the Cold War.
Overall this is a pretty damn good six episode run.
21. Captain Marvel
Toxic internet assholes can eat shit. This movie got a bad rep when it came out due to a bunch of neckbeards who didn’t want to give a female superhero the time of day.
This movie is an extremely fun movie, and a pretty damn good origin for Captain Marvel in the MCU.
Carol and Nick Fury make a hell of a buddy cop tandem, and if nothing else I want a Top Gun style movie with Carol and Maria Rambeau going through flight school together. More Brie Larson singing “Kiss Me Deadly” at karaoke please.
This is a damn entertaining movie, and I can’t wait until we get The Marvels coming up.
That’s it for the first chunk of my list. There are too man MCU entries to do this any other way, but I’ll hopefully have the next chunk up by the end of the week. Until then true believers!
