Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame
I count them as one film. A near perfect end/new beginning for the MCU.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
From a strictly technical standpoint, this is the best film in the MCU. It transcended the superhero genre & pushed Marvel Studios forward.
Black Panther
The perfection of the “Marvel Formula”. A great story that expanded the MCU, created new stars, and was/is extremely socially relevant.
Captain America: Civil War
Another smash for the Vince Russo Brothers! They brought the big comic crossover to life and introduced two cornerstones of Phase IV (Peter & T’Challa).
Iron Man/Guardians Vol. 1/The Avengers
All 3 films were important…And good.
To me it’s a cop out to say Infinity War and Endgame are one five hour movie. Is the LOTR trilogy one 9 hour long movie? Is The Matrix one long movie? No. They were released as separate parts. To consider them one movie almost negates the cliffhanger ending of Infinity War that made it so special.
Anyway, my top five right now:
Captain America - Winter Soldier
Avengers - Infinity War
Avengers - Endgame
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron-Man
I’ve only seen Endgame once. Whereas I’ve watched Infinity War a couple of times since it came out and it’s gone up my rankings. When I see Endgame again it might jump up.
It’s an interesting argument, and you could make a case either way…But I view them as one film (if I’m remembering right, originally they were titled IW pt. 1 & pt. 2).
IMO, this is a slightly different situation than “Empire” & “Jedi” where both films had a definitive beginning/middle/end. I feel like the story told in IW is the beginning & middle, where Endgame tells the middle & end.
But if we’re counting them as 2 films, I’d probably rank Endgame at #2 & IW in that #5-#9 range (depending on the day & what film I watched most recently…Lol!). Either way, it’s clear the Kev & dem boys changed the game in terms of modern movie storytelling.
Thor: Ragnarok: for this is probably the last great movie of the current MCU era, it really went down hill for me after this one.
Guardian of the galaxy: Didn’t know the characters and i still remember seeing this at a special festival screening and the crowd went wild for pretty much everything. It was a really fun movie to watch.
Doctor Strange: another character that i really didn’t know but just got into after seeing the movie. The story was really strong and the special effect just awesome.
Ant-man: The first ant-man was really fun and again, another character that i didn’T know and that i wanted more of it after the screening.
The incredible Hulk: For my last pick, i’m going pretty much to the beginning of the MCU with this. Yeah they change the actor playing Hulk after the movie but it doesn’t change that ed norton really was fantastic in the role of bruce banner and the story was really to pretty much everything that was made before it (excluding the first movie).
Finally i know it’s not really the point of this thread and i don’t want to be negative too much but i kinda want to put my bottom 5 as well.
Ironman 3: yeah this was a really bad movie and the bait and switch for the villain really didn’t help the movie.
Avengers: age of ultron: Probably the worst out of the four avengers movie nothing really worked in this movie and it felt long for nothing.
Thor: the dark world: Don’t really remember the movie which says something about it for me.
guardian of the galaxy vol. 2: yeah, i loved the first one so much that i was really excited when the sequel was announce, then i saw the movie and was really disappointing by it. The whole story is just plain boring and the ending made really no sense at all. The only redeeming quality this movie had was Drax and mantis who were so funny in this movie.
Black Panther: i only have 2 movies that i don’t own on blu ray or DVD in the MCU (if you don’t count the last 2 movies) It’s avengers age of ultron and this one. The reason why i’m not a fan of this one is pretty much because compare to other characters in the MCU that i didn’T know before, i really didn’t connect with this one the way i did with the guardians or ant man. The movie isn’t really bad it’s just there. Kinda like what captain marvel was this year( which is another movie i might not buy).
My list is largely based on how often I enjoy rewatching each film, with Endgame being something I fully intend to rewatch several times once it’s digitally released.
Least favourite
Iron man 2
Thor
Incredible hulk
First avenger
“phase 1” nailed the casting of the leads and some great characterization for your two major leads (cap and stark) - everything got better as they progressed when it came to the rest
