Best Marvel movies

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a shared movie universe which features a series of superhero movies based on Marvel Comics. It started its life in 2008. with highly successful Iron Man and less successful The Incredible Hulk (then played by Edward Norton before Mark Ruffalo took over).

After that Marvel slowly and patiently builds their cinematic universe releasing each year new movie for every of their most popular characters for which they had rights leading to a release of The Avengers in 2012., a team-up of Marvel’s famous heroes. The Avengers exploded on box-office and is still their most commercially successful movie (it is 5th most successful movie worldwide, after Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars: Force Awakens and Jurassic World). And after The Avengers, Marvel Phase II started (with Iron Man 3) and each new movie they released was a big success. We’re currently in Phase III of Marvel Cinematic Universe. And regarding the film rights for some characters – Marvel sold rights for Spider-Man to Sony and X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox. That’s the reason why they aren’t part of their cinematic universe (except Spider-Man because Sony teamed up with Marvel in 2016. after an unsuccessful reboot of Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield).

You see, DCEU was little late with their cinematic universe and didn’t have the patience to implement the same strategy but wanted the same and they wanted it fast. That’s one of the reasons why their movies until Wonder Woman was so bad – they felt rushed. So after just one movie, Man of Steel, we got Batman v. Superman which felt like five different movies crammed into one and the result was pretty bad. Suicide Squad was even more awful but for different reasons.

But let’s get back to Marvel. They released 17 movies from 2008. till now.

MCU Phase I

Phase one of Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008. with the release of Iron Man and ended in 2012. with the release of The Avengers. It featured 6 movies and following Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor.

• Iron Man (2008)
• The Incredible Hulk (2008)
• Iron Man 2 (2010)
• Thor (2011)
• Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
• The Avengers (2012)

MCU Phase II

Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase II started in 2013. with the release of Iron Man 3 and ended in 2015. with the release of Ant-Man. It also featured 6 movies and following Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Hulk.

• Iron Man 3 (2013)
• Thor: The Dark World (2013)
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
• Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
• Ant-Man (2015)

MCU Phase III

Phase III started in 2016. with the release of Captain America: Civil War and is still going.

• Captain America: Civil War (2016)
• Doctor Strange (2016)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (2017) – you can read our review here
• Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) – you can read our review here
• Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Upcoming:

• Black Panther (2018)
• Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
• Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
• Captain Marvel (2019)
• Avengers: Infinity War Sequel (2019)

Best Marvel movies

With the latest movie from MCU Thor: Ragnarok currently dominating world box office let’s take a look at best Marvel movies (top 5).

5.  Doctor Strange

One more of the riskier Marvel projects that turn into the hit and received good reviews. Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a talented neurosurgeon who is left with damaged nerves after the tragic car accident. He must find a way to cure his hands and ends up in Nepal becoming a powerful sorcerer under the guidance of Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Doctor Strange is a solid but little generic superhero origin story elevated by some great and imaginative visuals. Cumberbatch is pretty good as the main hero, rest of the actors also did a good job, some of the action scenes were excellent and the movie is a visual feast.

4.  Ant-Man

Ok, this looked really stupid and not promising at all :). I don’t like the character and only hope I had for this movie was because Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, Hot Fuzz) was involved. But after he left the project and was replaced by Peyton Reed (who previously directed comedies like The Break-Up, Bring It On and Yes, Man) I lost all hopes and it looked like this is going to be Marvel’s first failure. But Marvel once more showed they can turn anything into a hit. The movie received good reviews, featured solid cast and story, likable characters, funny jokes and some pretty cool action scenes. Paul Rudd, previously knows for starring mostly in comedies, was a very good choice as the main hero. I liked that movie was more grounded than some of their other movies (like Avengers or Thor for example). I prefer more when a movie has good villains and more grounded action than when it is a CGI orgy fest where everything is exploding or collapsing and heroes are fighting some weak and generic CGI enemies. Ant-Man was basically Marvel’s heist movie.

3.  Captain America: Civil War

A sequel to Winter Soldier pits Captain America (and his supporters) against Iron Man and his team. Civil War received maybe even better reviews, has some very good action scenes and a solid story. It also managed to cram so many Marvel heroes (Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Black Widow, Falcon, War Machine, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Vision and Scarlet Witch) without feeling overstuffed. That’s the reason why some called it Avengers 2.5. And it was a better Avengers movie than Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

2.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

First Captain America was a little trashy but fun action movie set during World War II. It was a watchable movie but nothing special. Also, I wasn’t a fan of the character although now after 3 solo movies I can say that I’m surprised how much I like a movie version of Captain America :). Things changed after the release of Winter Soldier, one of the rare examples when a sequel is better than the original. Inspired by political thrillers of the 70’s, Winter Soldier is a very fun superhero movie which features solid story and cast, likable characters, and really well-made action sequences. Regarding the action scenes, I was pleasantly surprised because directors (Russo brothers) before this only directed a comedy You, me and Dupree and some TV shows. After Winter Soldier, they directed a sequel Civil War and are currently working on 2 new Avengers movies.

1.  Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

First Guardians of the Galaxy was a big risk for Marvel – movie about unknown superheroes that looked like a mish-mash of a superhero movie, comedy and Star Wars. From the trailers, it looked kinda silly and stupid but not in a good way. After the release it was clear that Marvel can do and sell anything – movie was a big box office hit and received very good reviews.

In my humble opinion, it is a very good movie, the best one in MCU, a playful and colorful comic book movie that is not ashamed of its origins with excellent visuals and soundtrack, solid story and jokes and very good performances from all the actors.

And for the rest …

There you go. These are in my humble opinion best Marvel movies. And regarding the rest of them I find them just ok-ish (Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger), a so-so (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor) or bad (Thor: Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk).

I still didn’t watch Thor: Ragnarok but from what I heard it seems it is one of Marvel’s better movies. I didn’t rush to see it because I didn’t like previous Thor movies very much. But Ragnarok is directed by talented Taika Waititi and if you didn’t saw them I recommend you to watch his previous movies, What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

What do you guys think? What are your best Marvel movies?