Every Movie in the MCU Rated, from Worst to First

5. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

The year 2017 was a remarkable one for superhero movies. Wonder Woman showed D.C./Warner Bros. how superhero movies should be done. Logan transformed the superhero narrative into a gritty, grimy Western. We’ve already talked about Spider-Man: Homecoming. And then there came Ragnarok, which took arguably the MCU’s most potentially pompous character and dropped him into a loony, sometimes utterly unhinged action comedy. Ragnarok is a delight from stem to stern, from Thor’s opening narration hanging from a chain to the incredible battle on Asgard’s rainbow bridge (to the grinding, soaring music of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”). Think superhero movies are all the same? Check out Ragnarok and try to stick with that story.

4. Iron Man (2008)

The MCU would never have happened had it not been for Downey’s charismatic turn in the original Iron Man. It’s hard to remember now, but at the time, most folks didn’t even know who Iron Man was. Marvel had already sold away its rights to many of its best-known characters (Spider-Man to Sony, the X-Men to Fox), and no one knew if anyone would show up to watch a B-list superhero do his thing. This film changed not only Marvel’s cinematic fate, but pop culture as we know it.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

If Captain America: The First Avenger was all about crafting a traditional do-gooding superhero, Winter Soldier threw that do-gooder into a complex, conflicted and fallen world. The film plays out almost more like an espionage thriller than a superhero movie—a relatively gritty, grounded film positioned between the intergalactic fantasies of Thor: The Dark World and the original Guardians of the Galaxy. This movie worked, plain and simple.

2. The Avengers (2012)

Four years and five movies primed the pump for this game-changing superhero flick, and the movie lived up to the hype. Director Joss Wheden brought back the charismatic Loki as the movie’s big bad, re-introduced us to the future BIG big bad Thanos and gave the whole works a sense of playful, apocalyptic fun.

1. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Endgame is not a perfect movie. Some parts don’t make sense. Others feel a little too explicitly like thrown bones. But here’s the thing: The movie is so fun, so poignant and so emotionally satisfying that it barely matters. In a screen stuffed with superheroes, every character gets a chance to shine, and some get sendoffs worthy of a tissue or two. Endings are hard to do, especially when you’re navigating so much narrative history and so many expectations. But somehow, the MCU managed to nail the landing.