The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ranked

M: The Marvel Cinematic Universe has brought us a lot of pleasure in its 10 years, and 20 films. At its conception it felt ambitious, but we couldn’t really imagine the scale and consistency, for the most part, that this series of films has managed since.

The three of us were prompted to write this list as we’ve read so many articles ranking these films, and they’re invariably confusingly wrong. So… we’ve decided that doing one by committee will be a surefire way to satisfy everyone, with us all being completely happy with the bastard offspring of our respective tastes.

The discussion around favourite film vs objective quality is a difficult one. In my scoring, these will inherently have a large overlap, but ultimately we’re judging on personal preference and taste.

L: I’ve decided I’m ranking based on how much I like these movies. My head will explocide (actual typo) if I try to use some kind of criterion of ‘quality’. Some of these rankings are clearly because I have seen certain films more than others. I have to qualify these with the ‘these are what I liked’ – but as Martin said there should be an overlap with ‘quality’. And some of these rankings are clearly because I have seen certain films more than others.

E: All of these movies I saw in the cinema. But only some of them (quite a few actually) have I repeatedly watched. And watching them at home does change your relationship with them. Sometimes for the better but often not. Also I love that there are fewer and fewer boxes into which we are being shoved. This is a Marvel movie blog post which outlines its scoring methodology. Tony Stark would approve.

Method:

Each of the movies is ranked by each of us, 1-20.
Top spot scored 20 points, bottom ranked scored 1 point.
Total score summed, and displayed next to each entry (maximum score of 60).

Here we go…

1) The Avengers        (Total Score: 56/60)

M: The pervading feeling on release was whether Whedon could pull this off. Phase One, as we’ve now come to call it, had been a little rocky. Could the plates be juggled effectively, and would audiences go for it? Emphatically.

E: So much fun. So much peril. So many moving parts. The day-time action sequences were so crisp and clear. Ron Howard claims that George Lucas coined the term “simultaneity” when describing telling the parallel Star Wars storylines together. This he tackled in each movie. But each distinct Marvel movie was like a simultaneity leading to the The Avengers which was itself one big denouement to the entire Marvel moviescape. Brilliant.

L: Perfect ‘setting up the team’ movie. It’s funny stuff. With Coulson and Black Widow giving us proper moments of empathy. Sometimes movies intimidate me when considering re-watching, because I know they bring emotional heft that will affect me. This is one of them.

2) Captain America: The Winter Soldier        (55)

E: To me this one feels closest to the template and benchmark set by Nolan’s Batman for verisimilitude and the psychology of conflict. The beginning of grey in Marvel.

M: Yeah, and it was quite far removed from what had come before; especially in contrast to The First Avenger. I think it’s when the concept first landed with me that each of these instalments could live in a different genre, while still clearly being part of the same ‘universe’. This was ”70s paranoid thriller’ – The Conversation, The French Connection – with super-soldiers.

L: Grim, corrupt, dark – cool new suit, Cap and Widow teaming up. It’s so good, it’s so ’70s. It had significant repercussions for S.H.I.E.L.D.

3) Avengers: Infinity War        (51)

L: Has NO business to be as excellent as it is. Kieron Gillen said something in one of his weekly newsletters (65: Dicey Moral Dilemmas) that kind of captures it for me: “It’s a fascinating thing that I can’t quite believes exists on the big screen. It consists almost solely of fight scenes, brief comedy sketches and Dicey Moral Dilemmas that you could pull out of a Telltale Videogame. Yet it makes it work, and when it’s fundamentally a villain protagonist story, that’s something else. We will never see its like again, except perhaps next year. It’s an interesting time.”

M: It’ll be interesting to see how this is viewed post Avengers 4. I loved it, and was nervous, even through the first couple of acts – is this going to coalesce? It was relentless. And Thanos is so well realised. Makes the wait for Captain Marvel and Avengers 4 unbearable.

E: This could have been number one. I think it achieved something incredible in the way in attempted to weave so many disparate strands into a whole. That it ultimately failed its cohesion test is not a fault of the final cut, but perhaps the endeavour itself. A huge undertaking of storytelling but in the end the scale told.

M: I have to disagree on it not cohering – you’ve finally got all these characters together, and then that gut-punch of ending…

4) Captain America: Civil War        (50)

E: A sort of mini-Avengers. Equally it could have fallen under the Iron Man banner. I loved the tension and completely bought each of the conflicting characters motivations.

L: Or, the ‘Tony Stark’ show. If Robert Downey Jnr doesn’t want to make any more standalone Iron Man films, fine, but he can’t hijack everyone else’s. Either way, this is basically an Avengers movie. It’s brilliant. It’s beautifully emotional.

M: Yeah, almost a trial run before Infinity War. Playful and serious at the same time. The airport scene, despite the sparseness of the staging itself, was one of the high points of the series to that point. And Spidey!

5) Iron Man        (45)

L: It kicked it all off, and is damn entertaining. I feel like I need to rate put the first Iron Man, Captain America and Thor films in the top slots, because they had to be this good to make the other films possible. Plus, they’re perfect introductions to these pivotal characters. If I compare this to the 2008 Hulk movie my mind chugs; they’re so different. It didn’t feel like anything coherent could happen, and I could not imagine the universe that they have since created.

E: The proof of concept. RDJ’s charisma and vulnerability a potent mix.

M: Downey has been the MVP and catalyst for the whole endeavour. As you say, he had the perfect combination of ingredients to make Stark work. Also, who could have predicted Jon Favreau would have such an expert touch for such spectacle? It did, however, also fall into the forgettable bad guy / metal things hitting each other trap that the series has since managed to get away from.

6) Thor: Ragnarok        (42)

E: What a hoot! Did Hulk talk too much? Yes. But the colour, the sound (and the soundtrack) and the action were vibrant. Tessa Thompson kicked ass and it had Cate Blanchett. #NuffSaid.

L: Fun fun fun! And heart. I forget Cate Blanchett is in this. I feel like she’s overshadowed by everything else. Tessa Thompson is awesome. I love its day-glo palette. I miss Natalie Portman though. I really hope we haven’t seen the last of her in these films. The recent Jason Aaron/Russell Dautermann run on the Thor comic puts her front and centre and shows how amazing this can be.

M: I feel she’s done though, but this kaleidoscope of funny doesn’t let you dwell on her absence for too long. Taika Waititi was a left-field, but inspired choice. The laughs start during the intro, and don’t let up. Never, though, at the expense of the through-line of the plot and its importance to the greater universe.

7) Thor        (41)

E: After the release of The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2, it was Thor which proved that Iron Man wasn’t a fluke. A hugely important instalment in the Marvel movie universe as they moved towards Avengers. Thor was a little less ripped back then but every bit as funny as we have now come to take for granted.

M: Exactly, after Hulk and IM2, it was absolutely imperative that Thor landed. The plot’s as sparse as the unconvincing rural town Thor finds himself in, but it worked. And it introduced Loki, who would prove a popular and important ingredient in Phase One.

L: It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy. It still gets me that it’s directed by Kenneth Branagh.  It’s a joyous riot of rainbow bridges. I mean, when you think about it, Chris Hemsworth is playing a completely ridiculous role through the whole series,  but he’s doing with such utter panache.

8) Captain America: The First Avenger       (38)

E: Captain America is a superhero out of his time. This juxtaposition can sometimes leave me with apple pie when what I really want is 5-alarm chilli. But here we find Cap in simpler times …more humane times (> 60 million dead in WWII). If Civil War is shades of grey then The First Avenger is nothing but monochrome. It’s the Stars and Stripes against Nazis!! The only real downside in all of this is that, unlike Steve Rogers, Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter is confined to her time.

L: It’s unironic, and it’s awesome and Chris Evans is a force to be reckoned with in this role. He’s the beating heart of Marvel. PEGGY. Young Stark. It’s fucking special.

M: This was the most divisive in the list, and would have placed much higher if it wasn’t for me. The production in few key moments and movements fell far short… I feel that the WWII scenes do not aesthetically have the weight and respect that they should (a crime that the more recent Wonder Woman is also guilty of), and key action beats are missed.

9) Black Panther        (37)

L: It was so hyped, had such huge expectations, and I feel like I need to watch it again to fully take it in because it is BIG. But… an engaging villain with actual motives that make sense, wonderful acting performances from the entire cast, great action sequences (the car chase is one of the best), and its scope and vision are genius.

E: Back in November 2016 L and I  were lucky enough, at a friend’s invitation, to attend “South Africa: The Art of a Nation” in the British Museum. I was immediately struck by how rare it had been in my life that I had seen paintings by Black people, let alone of Black people. And the very same can be said of Black Panther. Rather, the movies one did see with all Black casts were usually “urban” and which told stories of disaffected, marginalised communities in the sprawling cities of America. Irrespective of any movie commentary I write here, who cares? The people who were represented in those aforementioned stories were queuing around the corners of cinemas in those same cities to see this movie.

M: All that, absolutely, but also it struck me like a Bond film as much as a Superhero film. I think it was during the Korea sequence, which you’ve mentioned above. Really slick, great action, and great heart.

10) Doctor Strange        (34)

L: This looked stunning. Genuinely a different visual feel from the Marvel movies (others have achieved this too, like Guardians and Winter Soldier). But the way the magic was visualised was truly imaginative. I will say the Tilda Swinton casting move was a bad decision. Benedict Cumberbatch plays this perfectly. With a funny ‘English person doing American accent’.

M: I loved a lot of it – was really brave in stretching the whole universe to include the more mystical elements. Give me mirror dimensions and immortal time-gods all day, but fake facial hair and accents are a real problem in getting me on board. As good as Cumberbatch is, it’s a problem.

E: The special effects wowed me. The story was strong even if the bad guy was underwhelming.

11) Guardians of the Galaxy        (31)

M: Even considering the MCU had started out, and made a success of B-level characters, this was seen as a big risk. A talking racoon and a sentient tree? It’s easy to forget now how ridiculous this sounded, and the fact it was so good, and fun.

E: It broadened the palette of the Marvel Universe especially in terms of tone. Funny, with great styling and a killer soundtrack.

L: Weird, the soundtrack itself elevates it if nothing else. A jukebox musical.

12) Iron Man 3        (28)

L: It strips Stark, literally, and removes a lot of nonsense of Iron Man 2. Ben Kingsley is a nice surprise. And Pepper Potts gets to kick ass.

E: Ok… so finally a repressed macho male character in the MCU is forced to deal head-on with a psychological trauma. The guy is having panic attacks for goodness sake!! Help him! What? No? So how does Tony Stark deal with his PTSD? Do we find him reclining in a therapists office? No, alas. The only couch Tony finds himself on is a teenage boys (nothing untoward) in a garage in a small town. Tony is lost. Without his tech he’s like I would be driving without Google maps. Tony is on a perpetual roundabout. Figuratively, of course. Some of the Taglines for this movie are: “Unleash the power behind the armor” and “Even heroes fall”. So the filmmakers really are talking about the MAN here. And Stark’s crisis is believable. Sure he finds his way out of it by MANning-up, MANaging to be the hero, investigating some funny goings on in a small town and revealing his enemy, the MANdarin, to be a charlatan – all without his suit (Iron MAN or ArMANi). And it does make for some character development. But in the end everything goes to hell and a hand basket and all that emotional stuff is done away with in a 4th of July style lets’ blow the hell of this place finale that we all know and demand. Munch munch rustle rustle hurray.

M: At the of release this was my favourite of the series. I loved the subtle tonal shift that Shane Black brought. It’s been diminished slightly since, by the big decisions made – Pepper’s powers, Tony retiring the suits, Extremis – being largely ignored as canon.

13) Spider-Man: Homecoming        (25)

E: A terrific Spider-man with a less than terrific story. Perhaps this is just Sony Spider-Man fatigue talking? I ask myself the question: are stand alone movies a suitable format for this character? Given Peter Parker’s sense of humour, quips, one-liners , speed of wit matched only by his speed of movement, perhaps these cameos we’ve seen are a better format. Because in the longer form I find myself more interested Peter Parker than Spider-man and yearning for some John Hughes type coming of age movie rather than a superhero one.

M: It seems like that’s the conclusion they’ve come to with the Hulk. And parachuting Spidey into Civil War worked so well, there’s definitely still appetite for him here. Holding hands with Marvel has seemingly, finally got Sony on track with such a prized character. (We’ll save Venom and Sony’s other plans for a different discussion).

L: Doesn’t feel like a Marvel movie to me. It’s small, local danger for a local hero. Maybe that’s why I ranked it so low. I really like it, but it feels disconnected, which is right, it should I guess. Michael Keaton is so good, and Zendaya and Laura Harrier are excellent. So is Tom Holland, who is all guileless charm.

14) Ant-Man        (24)

E: Just a nice movie. A decent story with a central character that I wasn’t ambivalent about. Paul Rudd is the most likeable I’ve seen him onscreen. And the representation of the miniature things was good. I don’t have much to say for this movie. And certainly nothing against.

L: We’ll never see Edgar Wright’s take on it, but Peyton Reed does a good job (how condescending that sounds… but he did, it’s good!!). It’s fun, but… it’s kind of inconsequential.

M: I really enjoyed this as a standalone, relatively-low stakes heist movie. I mourned the day Edgar Wright left, but it’s no mean feat that it’s so finely made considering its troubled gestation. Something that, strangely, its sequel cannot boast.

15) Thor: The Dark World        (20)

E: Unlike Ant-Man this movie does foster strong feelings. It combines two of the more tiresome and male orientated plot devices – a woman who is “invaded” by an entity and the “fridging” of another – so that a bunch of emotionally repressed men (brothers and father) can shed their little man tears, deal with their fragile egos and actually get something done. I didn’t like it, though London looks great.

L: Trying to decide if this should be higher just because I like it – am I ranking based on how much I like or my view of objective quality?? Ok I’m moving it higher. They did wrong by Frigga though, that’s bullshit.

M: Hemsworth and Portman are always going to be fun to watch, but this was a complete mess. The final action scenes were robbed of all consequence and physical grounding. The geographical gaff on the London Underground gets a lot of flack, but it’s symptomatic of the complete lack of coherence in the final third.

16) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2        (15)

 

M: In hindsight, the movie and reception is hugely frustrating. I feel that it was on a hiding to nothing. GotG was so unexpected and successful, that repeating the formula was always going to have diminishing returns. I loved some of the visuals, especially the flashbacks and end battle (Pac-man!), and Kurt Russel was fun as Ego.

E: It didn’t do enough to distinguish it from its predecessor which at least had a stylistic novelty in the Marvel universe. And the soundtrack wasn’t quite as good. But it did have Mantis – a woman who could interpret the feelings of yet more emotionally repressed men. Rocket remains the most interesting character and gets all the best lines. If someone can explain Chris Pratt’s success to me I’d be indebted.

L: Disappointing. Enjoyable, but god Peter Quill is an awful dickhead, and I can’t really accept watching a film totally based around that.

17) Avengers: Age of Ultron        (14)

 

E: The weakest of the Avengers. It’s a bit of a mess. The pacing is erratic and the conflict, so brilliantly arrived at in Civil War, here, well, they went over the side of the cliff for a short-cut. The opening scene was spectacular and made a promise that the rest of the movie couldn’t keep. Tony Stark got a lot of screen time and, whether actor or studio demands for RDJ to feature so much, an opportunity to explore more of the other characters (Black Widow, or especially Hawkeye – I mean I can imagine this version of Hawkeye dressing up á la the Tumblr meme just because he’s so bored) was missed.

L: Necessary, spins into Civil War nicely. On its own, meh. Widow’s character gets some shitty notes. I actually kinda forget this film…liked it much more immediately after watching. It’s settled to much lower in my esteem now.

M: I struggle with why it’s so forgettable. The creation of Ultron and Vision should be so much more important and …better.

18) Ant-Man and the Wasp        (13)

 

E: I enjoyed this a lot. Much like with Ant-Man there’s not much to dislike. It needed the “I’ve only a few days of house arrest left and I don’t want to jeopardise my life with my daughter” tension. But ultimately this movie is a about a guy who decides he’d rather get laid than be a good dad. That’s something to dislike I suppose.

19) Iron Man 2       (6)

 

L: This was appalling. I’m glad Jon Favreau’s career wasn’t (much) impacted… beyond presumably losing the Iron Man 3 directing job? Of course, he’s a dude, so that helped.

M: Similar to Age of Ultron, this was a huge disappointment of a sequel, and initially left me scratching my head as to why the repeated formula suffered didn’t reap similar results. Rourke and Rockwell criminally wasted, and Don Cheadle has never fitted the War Machine armour.

E: Utterly forgettable. If only.

20) The Incredible Hulk        (5)

E: This movie is so average that even Nick Fury refused to appear. Apparently Ed Norton re-wrote many scenes and directed himself in some too. For me, irrespective of quality, this movie feels like the only mistake in the entire MCU. There’s not even an post or mid-credits scene. WTF?

L: I barely even consider this an MCU movie. The appearance of Tony Stark at the end I guess ties it in, but Ed Norton’s Bruce is just so removed from what he became.

M: Nobody really knew what to expect in the early days of the MCU, and it was really exciting. Hulk was one of the few household names going in, but this did a pretty good job of quelling the hysteria. The other initial entries proved strong enough to pull it through the early teething period.