“There was an idea…”

Said idea was different to almost every version of the big screen superhero seen previously. Rather than each costumed hero existing in their own sealed-off vivariums, what if they could all share one interconnected universe containing a single ever-evolving and expansive story?

Once the idea gained traction, billions of dollars, and many “phases” of franchise continuity, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) became the envy of every studio with a lucrative intellectual property to siphon and thus many attempts were made to replicate the success of the “Marvel Formula”.

Much like the James Bond series in the decades before it, the MCU is primarily a producer-led franchise, the ultimate mastermind behind the project being Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, though distinct directors like Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon and Taika Waititi have certainly left their mark on their respective entries in the ongoing series.

What keeps us (and wider box office audiences) coming back, aside from the ever-increasing levels of superhero spectacle and long-form storytelling borrowing liberally from 80-plus years of comic books, is the time you’re afforded to grow to love the characters and their relationships with each other, especially in the ambitious team-up Avengers movies.

In this edition of Ranked we at The Film Magazine are assessing every entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and because fans have very different opinions on the best, the worst and everything in between regarding this series, we’ve attempted to find a balance between average critical consensus and general audience reception, as well as genre innovation and the lasting impact on popular culture, to order all of them definitively from worst to best.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration… Every MCU Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Ranked.

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33. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

“A guy dressed like a bee tried to kill me when I was six. I’ve never had a normal life.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review

The Ant-Man films are probably the most inconstant sub-series in the MCU, quality wise, but because the final chapter of their trilogy tries to go both big and small, it well and truly overreaches itself.

Pitting the Lang/Van Dyne family against Kang the Conqueror in the Quantum Realm, force of nature Jonathan Majors playing a fascinating villain isn’t quite enough to save Peyton Reed’s threequel from being just an eye-catching jumble of mismatched, tonally confusing ideas.

For Kang’s first, less maniacal appearance and the start of this whole Multiverse Saga, make sure to watch Season 1 of ‘Loki’.

32. Eternals (2021)

“We have loved these people since the day we arrived. When you love something, you protect it.”

Eternals Review

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) is a great director, no doubt, but she was just not a good fit for the MCU in this story of space gods guiding humanity’s progress. Considering the usually grounded and singular vision of her work, this was a particularly crushing disappointment for most audiences.

The ambition and epic millennia-spanning scope of Eternals sadly did not pay off in this jarring, misjudged slog of a final product that couldn’t even be saved by a stellar and diverse cast. 

31. The Marvels (2023)

“Listen to me, you are chosen for a greater purpose. So you must go. But I will never let you go.”

The Marvels Review

The Marvels smartly builds a lot of its appeal around its central team-up of Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan as their power usage causes them to swap places across the universe, but their found family warmth and oodles of charisma can’t overcome all the film’s flaws.

This needed more purposeful storytelling, a villain that doesn’t feel like a retread of what came before and more direct confrontation of the darker implications of the story. The musical elements will likely make an already decisive movie more so, but the MCU overall could do with some more audacious imagery like what Nia DaCosta does with alien cats.

Watching ‘Wandavision’ and ‘Ms Marvel’ through beforehand will certainly help you connect with two of the three leads that bit quicker.

30. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

“Whosoever holds these weapons, and believes in getting home, if they be true of heart is therefore worthy, and shall possess… for limited time only, the power… of Thor!”

Thor: Love and Thunder Review

Taika Waititi is the kind of distinct voice that gave the MCU a jolt in the arm when it was most needed, and he was vital in reinvigorating the Thor series, but the tonal balance and technical polish certainly felt off in 2022 release Thor: Love and Thunder.

Good performances from Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Christian Bale, and some memorable set pieces aside, Thor’s latest adventure battling a god-killer with his now superpowered ex-girlfriend Jane Foster at his side feels like too many mismatched stories smashed together.

Recommended for you: Taika Waititi Films Ranked

29. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

“One son who wanted the throne too much, and other who will not take it. Is this my legacy?”

The God of Thunder’s third film appearance tries to live up to its title with a story of dark elves trying to snuff out all light in the universe. Sadly, a late change in director – Alan Taylor taking over from would-be Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins – and extensive Loki-centric reshoots didn’t help an already disjointed film feel any less so.

Thor’s dynamic with his Earthbound friends is still funny and more Loki (shoehorned in or not) is always a good thing with Tom Hiddleston in the role, but the storytelling is inconsistent at best and Christopher Eccleston under heavy prosthetics as Malekith may be the most boring villain in the MCU so far.

28. Iron Man 2 (2010)

“The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you’re in.”

The MCU’s first direct sequel went bigger and darker with Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark fighting a vengeful Russian inventor, a rival industrialist and potentially fatal health problems. Unfortunately, this ended up being a much less focussed, overblown and not all that compelling movie.

Scarlet Johansson makes her debut as Black Widow here, though she’s just a generic sexy spy at this point and not yet given the dimensions other writers would later bestow. The action is decent enough, but you wouldn’t lose out on much of you skipped over Iron Man 2 on your next MCU rewatch.

27. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

“You know, I know a few techniques that could help you manage that anger effectively.”

Lacking the clear intentions and boldness of many subsequent MCU movies, The Incredible Hulk is stylistically old-fashioned but works slightly better if you view this as a big-budget tribute to sympathetic monster movies (this one was made by Universal, after all).

A movie filled with false starts and one-off appearances (most obviously Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner would be recast with Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers in 2012), very little was carried over to the wider franchise right up until Tim Roth’s reappearance in ‘She-Hulk’ fourteen years later.

This is generally uninspiring stuff, with its most interesting man-on-the-run elements cribbed from the 1970s ‘Incredible Hulk’ TV show.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Universal Classic Monsters

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Director: Peyton Reed
Screenwriter: Jeff Loveness
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, William Jackson Harper, Katy M O’Brian, David Dastmalchian, Bill Murray

In 1964, Kang the Conqueror made his debut in Marvel comics, a year after appearing as another character entirely (it’s complicated, but basically Marvel writers later decided an Egyptian Pharaoh villain was another version of the time-travelling terror). After menacing The Avengers and the Fantastic Four for decades on the page in some of the most convoluted and regularly ret-conned stories around, he finally made his live-action debut in the Season 1 finale of ‘Loki’, hiding at the nexus of all realities as He Who Remains, portrayed by Jonathan Majors. His demise was one of the events that cracked open the Marvel Multiverse, and now Majors returns as Kang proper to clash with the MCU’s seemingly most insignificant super-family. Got all that? Good.

The newfound comfortable existence of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) as a well-liked world-saver plugging his memoir is shaken when Janet Van Dyne’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) time trapped in the Quantum Realm comes back to haunt her. Threat to all reality, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who has been banished to the microverse, brings the Lang/Van Dyne family – including Scott’s partner Hope Van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Scott’s now teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) and Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) – to the Quantum Realm in order to use their size-changing technology to escape his prison.

In Ant Man and the Wasp, during our brief sojourn to the Quantum Realm to rescue Michelle Pfeiffer, a lot was made of the fact that it “melts your mind”, implying something pretty psychedelic and out-there. There are certainly some surreal vistas and weird lifeforms inspired by micro photography, especially when our tiny heroes first plummet into a tinier world, but they could have definitely gone further with the brain-melting, especially in movie with such an attention-grabbing title as Quantumania. 

The denizens of the Quantum Realm are an assortment of interesting-looking creatures you might find on the covers of pulp sci-fi magazines in the 1950s, ranging from living broccoli to anthropomorphic glowing goo to Bill Murray. Then there’s the new secondary villain, android M.O.D.O.K, who looks absolutely terrible and completely breaks your suspension of disbelief whenever he’s on screen, though that is partly because they’re trying to do the impossible and adapt his particularly goofy design from the comics faithfully into live-action.

Paul Rudd remains the lovable core of this corner of the MCU, and as well as hearing his thoughts on his fellow Avengers out loud (“I was just happy to meet a raccoon who could talk”) this time Scott Lang is really put through the wringer. There’s a warm chemistry between Scott, Hope and Cassie, here recast as Kathryn Newton (Freaky), who regularly threatens to steal the show with her sheer moxie. It’s also refreshing that Cassie has to learn to effectively use her powers very much through trial and error – the five years she was on her own post-Thanos snapping half the universe away was used productively and she has a gifted scientific mind, but she has never had to test this technology in a fight before. Michelle Pfeiffer is on (admittedly committed) exposition duty for much of the movie, while Michael Douglas keeps a straight face with his hands stuck in a couple of slugs to fly a quantum spaceship. 

But this is Kang’s or, more accurately, Jonathan Majors’ movie. This particular saga of the MCU’s ongoing story has taken some time to gain traction, but the arrival of this particular big bad could very well accelerate things. A time-travelling world-conqueror whose many variants from other timelines have caused temporal and inter-dimensional chaos, Kang creates an oppressive regime within the Quantum Realm. He desires to correct the mistakes of his other selves and ultimately escape the tyranny of time itself. Majors is a charisma supernova and is able to convey with a gesture what many of his contemporaries would struggle to evoke with a monologue, not to mention that his physique makes him a credible threat even without his advanced weaponry.

The visual effects work on this movie, M.O.D.O.K aside, is certainly more polished than on Love and Thunder, which makes you think the VFX artists were given more ample time to complete the considerable task that was being asked of them. It’s all very bright and colourful, and the action scenes are dynamic, but shots can feel a bit busy and hard to pick out the details that really matter; a problem that will only be exacerbated in post-converted 3-D, which is disappointingly starting to re-surface with another ridiculously successful Avatar instalment.

The humour in Marvel movies often receives criticism for being incessant and interfering with dramatic moments landing with real impact, and the same could be argued here. Thankfully, Rudd, Newton and even Douglas demonstrate good enough timing to make sure most of the jokes about their family’s crazy science projects and tendency to land in jail really hit home. As fun as the film’s frankly ridiculous final stretch is, for a time it looks like they’re going for something pretty bold and grounded for a change before chickening out last-minute, which is a shame.

The main problem with Quantumania is that it is trying to be two very different movies that don’t really fit together. On the one hand you’ve got a fun, Fantastic Voyage-meets-Star Wars family sci-fi, and on the other you’ve got a deathly serious Kang origin story following a tortured time-travelling mass-murderer that’s like one of the darker ‘Doctor Who‘ stories. Given that he has apparently killed a lot of Avengers in other universes, Kang understandably underestimates Scott, his family and their capabilities to his cost, and it’s this perhaps misplaced faith in his own power and the fact that he’s just a man using technology from the future and not a space god that may ultimately make him more interesting in upcoming films than Thanos was. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is OK, but continues the slightly underwhelming, slow downward trend of the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe. At least it shows some imaginative flourishes and compellingly sets up the many faces of the next villain big enough to prompt the Avengers to reform and save the universe once more.

Score: 15/24

Following its announcement at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, the next Marvel Avengers film has found its director. Destin Daniel Cretton, who previously directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, will helm the superhero team-up set for 2025. 

Not much is known about the film, other than the title: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kang is to be the new Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking over from Thanos. Jonathan Majors (Da 5 Bloods) will portray the interdimensional conqueror, having already appeared in the ‘Loki’ Disney+ series. He will reportedly be present for 2023’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. 

Before joining the Marvel banner, Cretton directed smaller films including Just Mercy and Short Term 12. His 2021 comic book genre debut introduced skilled martial artist Shang-Chi to the MCU. Shang-Chi starred Simu Liu in the titular role, with supporting appearances from the likes of Awkwafina and Tony Leung. Shang-Chi was a commercial success and received positive reviews, and the director is expected to return to write and direct a sequel.

Cretton follows the same trajectory as MCU royalty the Russo brothers. Anthony and Joe Russo began their time at the studio with the standalone film Captain America: The Winter Soldier and were later upgraded to helm the two highest-grossing films in the franchise: Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame. Since leaving Marvel, the Russos have directed the Tom Holland-led Cherry and 2022 Netflix Original The Gray Man starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling.

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was announced alongside a slew of other projects at SDCC, including the full Phase 5 line-up. Highlights include the third instalment in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (5th May 2023), Captain America: New World Order (3rd May 2024) and the return of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil in a new Disney+ series titled ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ (Spring 2024).

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige also teased phase 6, which will kick off with a Fantastic Four reboot (8th November 2024). Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2nd May 2025) will be the first part of a one-two punch intended to close off phase 6 and the Multiverse Saga as a whole. Six months later, the sixth Avengers film will hit theatres in the form of Avengers: Secret Wars (7th November 2025). No director has been announced for this project yet. While many are championing for the Russos to return, Feige told Deadline that the brothers were not involved. Feige also confirmed that phase 4 will come to an end with 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.