There are 38 of these things now, and no two fans agree on the order. This is our MCU movies ranked list, worst to best, built from critic scores, box office, and our own arguments for where the consensus gets it wrong — covering every MCU film from 2008’s Iron Man through 2026’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Last updated: October 8, 2026. Rotten Tomatoes scores below are a snapshot as of early October 2026 — they drift a point or two over time, so treat them as a guide, not gospel. Avengers: Doomsday arrives in December 2026; it isn’t ranked here because it hasn’t come out yet.
The Weakest Links
Here’s a pattern worth naming: six of the ten movies in this tier came out of Phase Four and Five. After Endgame closed the book on the Infinity Saga, Marvel spent two phases throwing standalone, loosely connected stories at the wall for Disney+ synergy instead of a shared plot. Some of them are fine movies on their own terms. Most of them just feel like homework.
38. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
This is the one that killed the Kang timeline before it started. Jonathan Majors’ real-life fallout didn’t help, but the movie was already struggling under green-screen Quantum Realm CGI and a script that treats its villain reveal as a trailer moment instead of an earned turn. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 46%, and that feels generous.
37. Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Harrison Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross deserved a better showcase than this. The politics-thriller setup is promising, the execution is flat, and it landed at 46% on Rotten Tomatoes — tied with Quantumania for the lowest score on this entire list.
36. The Marvels (2023)
The lowest-grossing MCU movie ever at $206 million worldwide, and the box office tells you what audiences thought of the marketing as much as the film. Kamala Khan’s fangirl energy is the best thing in it; the rest feels like three good ideas fighting for runtime.
35. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Funny in trailers, exhausting in a full sitting. Gorr’s grief arc is genuinely strong and gets buried under a parade of jokes that don’t land. 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it still outscores the next movie on this list — which is exactly why it’s ranked above it.
34. Eternals (2021)
This is the one entry on the list where we’re going against the score. Rotten Tomatoes puts Eternals at 48%, below Thor: Love and Thunder and The Marvels. We’d rather rewatch it than either of them. Chloé Zhao shot a Marvel movie like an actual film, not a theme-park ride, and the ensemble cast is doing real work even when the pacing drags. It’s a swing that missed, not a lazy cash-in, and those aren’t the same thing.
33. Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Widely considered the MCU’s lowest point for years before Phase Four arrived to contest the title. Malekith is a forgettable villain and the plot mostly exists to move Loki pieces around the board.
32. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Marvel’s second-ever movie, and it shows. Edward Norton is solid, the action is dated, and the studio clearly didn’t know yet what kind of universe it was building. It’s mostly remembered now as a footnote and a Tim Roth cameo setup.
31. Iron Man 2 (2010)
Sequel-itis in its purest form: more characters, more subplots, less focus. Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash is underused and the Nick Fury/Black Widow setup work feels more like a trailer for The Avengers than its own story.
30. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Sam Raimi’s horror instincts show up in flashes — the zombie Strange sequence is genuinely great — but the film spends most of its runtime servicing other franchises instead of its own.
29. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
James Spader’s Ultron has some of the best one-liners in the franchise, but the movie is visibly overstuffed trying to set up Phase Three. It made $1.4 billion worldwide and still gets remembered as the first sign the formula was straining.
Solidly Mediocre: Not Bad, Just Forgettable
Nothing in this tier is embarrassing. Nothing in it is essential, either. These are the MCU movies you’d happily watch on a plane and probably couldn’t describe the plot of a year later.
28. Thor (2011)
Kenneth Branagh brought real Shakespearean weight to the Asgard scenes; the New Mexico fish-out-of-water comedy is thinner. 77% on Rotten Tomatoes feels about right — a solid origin story, not a great one.
27. Iron Man 3 (2013)
The Mandarin twist is still one of the most divisive choices the MCU has ever made. Some fans never forgave it; others think it’s the sharpest joke in the franchise. Either way, Tony Stark’s PTSD arc is genuinely good work from Robert Downey Jr.
26. Black Widow (2021)
A perfectly good spy thriller that arrived about six years too late. Florence Pugh’s Yelena is the breakout the movie deserved to be remembered for, and she got her own, better spotlight later.
25. Captain Marvel (2019)
Carol Danvers’ origin leans too hard on mystery-box plotting at the expense of character. The Skrull twist is a genuinely good swerve; the rest plays safer than the character deserves.
24. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Here’s our second disagreement with the room: this one is overrated. The grief over Chadwick Boseman’s death is real and the film honors him well in its opening minutes, and that goodwill is doing a lot of the work behind its 84% Rotten Tomatoes score. Strip the emotional context away and the plot sags under two villains and a rushed Namor introduction.
23. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
A straightforward, old-fashioned war movie with a genuinely charming lead performance from Chris Evans before the character got interesting in Phase Two. 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it holds up as comfort viewing.
22. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
James Gunn gave Rocket a real backstory and it’s the emotional highlight of the whole trilogy’s send-off. The High Evolutionary is one of the more genuinely unsettling MCU villains, even if the plot around him meanders.
21. Ant-Man (2015)
A heist movie wearing a superhero costume, and that smaller scale is exactly why it works. Paul Rudd’s charm carries a film that knows it’s a B-plot in the larger MCU and doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Great Movies That Don’t Quite Crack the Top Tier
This is where the list gets genuinely hard. Every movie below has a real case for the top twelve; they just lose to something with a bigger cultural footprint or a tighter script.
20. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Rotten Tomatoes has this at 77%, which undersells how much fun it is in a theater. Hugh Jackman finally gets Wolverine onscreen without a PG-13 leash, and the film grossed $1.34 billion worldwide reintroducing fans to the idea that Marvel movies could feel like events again. Check out our Deadpool & Wolverine watch guide for where it actually sits in the timeline.
19. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Ego’s reveal as Star-Lord’s father is one of the better “the villain was family all along” twists Marvel has pulled off, and Yondu’s death still hits. 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
18. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
A retro-futurist redesign that finally made Marvel’s first family feel like they belonged on screen, after three failed studio attempts across two decades. 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and a genuinely confident tone-setter for Phase Six. See our full Fantastic Four: First Steps watch guide.
17. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Lighter and breezier than the first, with Evangeline Lilly finally getting equal billing as the Wasp. It’s a palate-cleanser between Infinity War and Endgame, and it knows exactly what job it’s doing.
16. Thunderbolts* (2025)
A found-family team-up about depression and burnout dressed as an action movie, which is a stranger pitch than Marvel usually risks. Florence Pugh anchors it, and the 88% Rotten Tomatoes score is one of the best any MCU film has gotten since Endgame.
15. Doctor Strange (2016)
The reality-bending visuals still hold up almost a decade later, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s arrogance-to-humility arc is one of the cleaner character journeys in an origin film. 89% on Rotten Tomatoes.
14. The Avengers (2012)
The movie that proved the whole shared-universe gamble could actually work. It doesn’t hold up quite as tightly as its sequels on a script level, but the Battle of New York is still a genuine blockbuster high. 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
13. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio is the best one-off villain performance the MCU has produced, and the post-Endgame grief Peter is carrying gives the globe-trotting plot real emotional stakes. 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The MCU’s Best (And Why They Still Hold Up)
These are the twelve we’d actually defend as great films, not just great superhero movies.
12. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
The newest film on this list earns its spot on momentum and craft, not nostalgia. Its $360 million domestic opening weekend broke Avengers: Endgame’s long-standing record of $357.1 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter (August 2026). Big openings don’t always mean a good movie, but 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and a genuinely satisfying Tom Holland send-off suggest this one earns the number. For the full financial picture, see our box office record breakdown.
11. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Simu Liu’s charisma and genuinely great martial-arts choreography made this the rare Phase Four movie that felt like an event instead of a placeholder. Tony Leung’s Wenwu is one of the MCU’s best villains because the film lets him be right about some things. 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
10. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Technically an Avengers movie wearing a Captain America title, and a better one than either Age of Ultron or Infinity War at juggling a dozen heroes with distinct motivations. The airport fight is still the series’ best large-scale set piece. 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.
9. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Nobody outside Marvel expected a talking raccoon and a walking tree to open north of $770 million worldwide, and the needle-drop soundtrack did as much marketing work as any trailer. It’s the moment the MCU proved it could take a genuine risk and have it pay off. 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
8. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
The first live-action Spider-Man movie that actually felt like high school, helped enormously by Michael Keaton’s Vulture being a blue-collar villain with an actual grievance instead of a world-ending plot. 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
7. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Josh Brolin’s Thanos is the only MCU villain who ever felt like he might actually win, and the Russo brothers pulled off juggling a cast this size without it collapsing into noise. $2.05 billion worldwide and an ending that genuinely shocked a mainstream audience in 2018. 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
6. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Three generations of Spider-Man sharing a screen could have been a cynical stunt. Instead it’s the rare multiverse movie that uses its gimmick to actually deepen the lead character’s arc. $1.92 billion worldwide and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
5. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Taika Waititi took a character two movies deep into mediocrity and turned him into the funniest lead in the franchise without losing the stakes. Cate Blanchett’s Hela and the Grandmaster’s neon Sakaar give it a visual identity nothing else in Phase Three has. 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
4. Iron Man (2008)
The one that started all of it. Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t the obvious casting choice in 2008 and the gamble on a C-list Avenger built an entire genre. The cave-escape act one still plays better than most modern origin stories. 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
The Russo brothers turned a superhero sequel into a genuine ’70s-style political thriller, and it’s aged into arguably the most purely well-made movie the MCU has released — no multiverse, no fifteen characters to juggle, just a tight, paranoid script. 90% on Rotten Tomatoes undersells it.
2. Black Panther (2018)
The highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any MCU movie at 96%, and it earns every point. Ryan Coogler built a fully realized culture in Wakanda and gave Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger a motive so good it makes the hero’s politics look complacent by comparison. $1.33 billion worldwide on a movie nobody at Marvel was confident about greenlighting.
1. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Yes, Black Panther has the higher Rotten Tomatoes score. We still put Endgame on top, because no other movie on this list had to land a twenty-two-film payoff and actually did it. The time-heist structure gives every corner of the franchise a real moment, the final battle earns its runtime, and $2.93 billion worldwide still makes it the highest-grossing MCU film ever — a record Brand New Day is chasing hard but, as of October 2026, still trails by roughly $400 million. For the blow-by-blow, our Avengers: Endgame watch guide covers it scene by scene.
Every MCU Movie, Side by Side
For the completionists: here’s all 38 films in our ranked order, with release year, Rotten Tomatoes score, and worldwide box office (figures from The Numbers, current as of October 2026).
| Rank | Movie | Year | Rotten Tomatoes | Worldwide Box Office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avengers: Endgame | 2019 | 94% | $2,926,503,363 |
| 2 | Black Panther | 2018 | 96% | $1,334,157,082 |
| 3 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | 2014 | 90% | $714,401,889 |
| 4 | Iron Man | 2008 | 94% | $584,877,827 |
| 5 | Thor: Ragnarok | 2017 | 93% | $850,482,778 |
| 6 | Spider-Man: No Way Home | 2021 | 93% | $1,921,206,586 |
| 7 | Avengers: Infinity War | 2018 | 85% | $2,048,158,241 |
| 8 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | 2017 | 92% | $883,830,222 |
| 9 | Guardians of the Galaxy | 2014 | 91% | $770,882,395 |
| 10 | Captain America: Civil War | 2016 | 90% | $1,151,899,586 |
| 11 | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | 2021 | 92% | $432,233,010 |
| 12 | Spider-Man: Brand New Day | 2026 | 90% | $2,506,719,390 |
| 13 | Spider-Man: Far From Home | 2019 | 91% | $1,137,144,726 |
| 14 | The Avengers | 2012 | 91% | $1,515,100,211 |
| 15 | Doctor Strange | 2016 | 89% | $676,343,174 |
| 16 | Thunderbolts* | 2025 | 88% | $382,436,917 |
| 17 | Ant-Man and the Wasp | 2018 | 87% | $623,144,660 |
| 18 | The Fantastic Four: First Steps | 2025 | 86% | $521,858,728 |
| 19 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | 2017 | 85% | $869,087,963 |
| 20 | Deadpool & Wolverine | 2024 | 77% | $1,338,073,645 |
| 21 | Ant-Man | 2015 | 83% | $518,858,449 |
| 22 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | 2023 | 82% | $845,555,777 |
| 23 | Captain America: The First Avenger | 2011 | 80% | $370,569,776 |
| 24 | Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | 2022 | 84% | $859,208,836 |
| 25 | Captain Marvel | 2019 | 79% | $1,129,576,094 |
| 26 | Black Widow | 2021 | 79% | $379,751,131 |
| 27 | Iron Man 3 | 2013 | 79% | $1,214,630,956 |
| 28 | Thor | 2011 | 77% | $449,326,618 |
| 29 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | 2015 | 75% | $1,395,316,979 |
| 30 | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | 2022 | 73% | $955,775,804 |
| 31 | Iron Man 2 | 2010 | 72% | $621,156,389 |
| 32 | The Incredible Hulk | 2008 | 68% | $265,573,859 |
| 33 | Thor: The Dark World | 2013 | 67% | $644,602,516 |
| 34 | Eternals | 2021 | 48% | $402,064,929 |
| 35 | Thor: Love and Thunder | 2022 | 64% | $760,928,081 |
| 36 | The Marvels | 2023 | 63% | $206,136,825 |
| 37 | Captain America: Brave New World | 2025 | 46% | $415,101,577 |
| 38 | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania | 2023 | 46% | $476,071,180 |
Want the small-screen side of the universe too? We ranked those separately in the best Marvel TV shows, ranked.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the worst MCU movie?
By Rotten Tomatoes score, it’s a tie between Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Captain America: Brave New World, both at 46%. We rank Quantumania as the worse of the two because of how badly it fumbled the Kang storyline it was built to set up.
What is the best MCU movie?
Rotten Tomatoes rates Black Panther highest at 96%. Our own pick is Avengers: Endgame, for pulling off a 22-film payoff that still holds up as a standalone story.
What order should I watch the MCU in?
Release order is the easiest way to see how the franchise actually built itself: Iron Man (2008) through Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). Chronological order inside the story’s own timeline is a fun second watch, but it spoils character arcs if it’s your first time through.
How many MCU movies are there as of October 2026?
38 theatrical films, from Iron Man (2008) through Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled for December 2026 and will become the 39th once it’s released.
