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How do? Felt we could do with a general thread, one where it’s just chitter chatter and that.

So, give it some thought, and list your top 5 of the MCU. Here, we’re counting those between Iron Man and Captain Marvel. Please no X-Men or F4 etc (not that I feel F4 would turn up in many lists, unless you’re out on day release and the men in the white coats are due any second to take you back to the Bouncy Room).

No particular requirement to justify your list, but a few words on why you like each is of course helpful.

In ascending order?

5. Spider-Man Homecoming

Probably because of where it sat in the release schedule. It’s pretty fun and goofy, and formed an interesting snapshot into the life of a Super Hero who grew up in a world where such exist - and publicly so.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

Just a decent space romp. And the scenes between Quill and his Dad really work. Indeed, as a film about family, it’s a cracker.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

Pipping it’s younger sibling to the post, simply because it was such a breath of fresh air. The first film since Avengers Assemble not to be a sequel, and very different in tone to what came before. Served as a near perfect palette cleanser for.....

2. The Winter Soldier

This for me is when the franchise really pushed the boat out in terms of what it could be. Everything else to this point had been distinctly family friendly. But this? Whilst far from R Rated, it was a decent dollop of more mature storytelling.

1. Civil War

Picked up where Winter Soldier left off, and just ran with it. It was also pleasing to see how politics can dismantle good efforts. Well, one man with an agenda anyway. It left dents in the characters in a way villains never could. And let’s be honest. It should’ve been the second Avengers film rather than Ultron.

So that’s my take, and my thoughts. I expect all will differ. To do this as a ‘ranking them all’ would be near impossible for me. Whilst the lower ranking ones would be easy, between the top and bottom five, there’s barely a cigarette paper between them. And just because some are in my bottom 5 wouldn’t mean I hadn’t enjoyed them.

Right. Over to you. Speak your brains!

I was working on a list already, might as well post it. The top... 6ish or so, are pretty hazy. I need to rewatch some of them to definitively say one is better than another. The same could be said for the next 5 to 7 or so and so on.

1 Black Panther
2 Captain America 3: Civil War
3 Guardians of the Galaxy
4 Thor 3: Ragnarok
5 Avengers 3: Infinity War
6 Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
7 Iron Man
8 Avengers
9 Captain America: The First Avenger
10 Spiderman: Homecoming
11 Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
12 Iron Man 3
13 Captain Marvel
14 Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
15 Ant-Man
16 Dr. Strange
17 Ant-Man & the Wasp
18 Thor
19 Incredible Hulk
20 Iron Man 2
21 Thor 2: The Dark World

Oh boy... here goes. Full disclosure, I am a massive Thor fanboy.

Top tier - these are my absolute favorites in order:

Infinity War
Winter Soldier
Avengers
Thor Ragnarok
Civil War
Iron Man
Guardians of the Galaxy

Middle-tier - I like these too, but they're missing something that separates them from the best. In no particular order:

Thor
Thor: The Dark World
Black Panther
Iron Man 2
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Captain Marvel
Ant-Man
Ant-Man and the Wasp

Bottom-tier - I don't necessarily hate these films, but I kinda feel like they're a chore to get through and the only reason I own them is for the sake of completion

Age of Ultron
Iron Man 3
Incredible Hulk
Captain America: The First Avenger
Doctor Strange

1. Avengers 3: Infinity War
Nevermind the balancing act that is required to fit in that many characters in a cohesive story, Infinity War gave us a villain with depth and dimension, something that is quite lacking in many of the other MCU films. #TeamThanos is something I stand behind, and from a utilitarian point of view, I actually side with him, not the Avengers. The culmination and completion of Thor's redemption arc and the individual failures of the defenders because of their individualistic beliefs, just make this a fantastic romp of a film with so much to dissect.

2. Captain America: Civil War
This film gave us Zemos, my second favorite villain of the MCU. He's a human who manages to manipulate and deceive the Avengers into tearing themselves apart in true Alpha Legion style, but does it in a way that creates a context that mirrors Infinity War: that is, how do you balance the rights of the individual vs the collective good? It's a philosophical debate with no right answer, and for a super hero film, provides a story with greater depth than I would have expected.

3. Thor: Ragnarok
The Revengers! Apart from being, in my opinion, the funniest MCU film, I love that this gives us a completely different interpretation of Thor, quite separate from all previous MCU films which type-cast him into this one-dimensional Shakespearean oaf who just loved to hit things really hard. Visually stunning, and a great soundtrack to boot.

4. Spiderman: Homecoming
I'm not a fan of the webbed hero, and I think every film prior has never done the character justice. But I think Tom Holland pulled it off well, and it was great watching him be that actually awkward nerd trying to balance school, a social life, and being newbie superhero at the same time. Plus that suit! Ooph.

5. Ant Man
I love how ridiculous every moment of this film is, and c'mon...Michael Pena! The pacing of this film is brilliant, and it balances epic with epic-scale so perfectly (that final battle!). Comedic timing gold!

The rest:

6. Doctor Strange
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
8. Black Panther
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Ant-Man and the Wasp
11. The Avengers
12. Iron Man
13. Iron Man 2
14. Captain America: The First Avenger
15. Iron Man 3
16. Guardians of the Galaxy
17. Thor
18. Thor: The Dark World
19: The Incredible Hulk
20: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

I haven't yet seen Captain Marvel, so I'll edit this list to fit it in later

1: Winter soldier
2: Dr Strange (yeah yeah i know)
3: Guardians of the galaxy
4: Civil war
5: Infinity war (4/5 change depending on mood)
6: Black panther
7: Iron man
8: Thor ragnorok
9: Spiderman homecoming
10: Ant man and the wasp
11: Guardians 2
12: First avenger
13: Age of Ultron
14: Thor
15: Iron man 2
16: Ant man
17: Iron man 3
18: Incredible Hulk
19: Captain marvel
20: Thor Dark world

God know why I like Dr strange so much, but I do, I think its because the ending is not the standard "good guy vs bad guy that is the same as the good guy but slightly different..... and wearing black!!!"

There are my top 5.

1 Captain America: Civil War
2 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3 Avengers: Infinity War
4 Thor: Ragnarok
5 Guardians of the Galaxy

Civilwar, Winter Soldier, and Infinity War are the best most well put together movies. The acting is stellar. The story telling is compelling and strong. The characters are the most well developed. I would argue that these are the best comic book movies made to date.

Thor Ragnarok and GotG (and GotG V2) are the most entertaining of the other marvel movies with gotg 1 beating out 2 only slightly.

6 Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2
7 Ant-Man and the Wasp
8 Captain America: The First Avenger
9 Spiderman Homecoming
10 Dr. Strange
11 Captain Marvel
12 Ironman
13 Black Panther

This chunk of movies are all great Marvel movies. They set the basic bar by which I judge most of them. The higher up the list either 1) the less a IM 1 clone they are or 2) the more compelling the actors and characters and story or the better the fun. CA for instance follows a lot of the IM format but damnit Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull and Anim Zola are fething great bad guys. The best single movie villains in the whole phase 1 lot.

14 Ant-Man
15 Thor
16 Ironman 2
17 Thor: The Dark World
18 Incredible Hulk

These movies are the lowest of the standard Marvel Movie lot. The plots all follow that IM format. The characters are good but nothing super amazing or ground breaking. They are fun and good but nothing stellar to be found here

19 Avengers: Age of Ulron
20 Avengers
21 Ironman 3

There last 3 are not bad movies in the way most of the DCEU is but they are the worst of the Marvel lot. Avengers for bad characterization and weak villains or villain motivations. IM 3 because it's the ONLY movie in the MCU that introduces a plot hole for the whole thing they just have to ignore. Tony Stark fixes extremis in this movie. He cures it. And extremis makes people immortal, regrows limbs, gives people lava powers, and basically cures death. WTF they need Cho's mom to graft synthetic skin on Hawkeye in A2 for is beyond me when the whole team could just have little vials of extremis/extremis cure on them at all times is a problem created by this dumb movie. It's fun and the actings fine and whatever. But IM 3 is the absolute worst the MCU has to offer.

I'll be honest, the only three MCU films which have wow'ed me more than "big budget popcorn film" were (in no real order)

1) Iron Man (refreshingly different at the time and it was nice to see RDJ back on the horse)

2) Guardians of the Galaxy

3) Spider Man (whatever the latest non-animated one is)

And honestly it's being a bit generous. I see all of these as light-hearted popcorn films and very little else. I don't think any of them hold a candle to genuinely quality movies/films...but I also don't expect them to. Just entertainment.

1. Civil War
2. Infinity War
3. Black Panther
4. Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Ant-Man and the Wasp

All the way at the bottom is Spider-Man Homecoming because i actually have respect for the comics and refuse to accept that POS as a legit Spider-Man film. Holland does a GREAT job in the Avengers/Cap movies. But the Homecoming movie is beyond worthless trash.

1) GotG
2)GotG2
3)Captain Marvel

these are the only three I could stay awake through.

1. GotG 2. For some reason this film just really resonates with me to the point where I'm pretty sure I've rewatched it more than any other MCU film. I think it had a stronger emotional core than any other MCU film.
2. The Winter Soldier. It's a very different movie than any other MCU film. As with, CA: TFA, TWS features no really super powered characters and is much more grounded in a 'real world' setting than any other. Unlike CA: TFA it has a compelling villain and features no mystical elements whatsoever.
3. Thor Ragnarok. No real explanation other than it has some very striking visuals and it is the best use of Hemsworth and Ruffalo so far.
4. Civil War. Honestly this might deserve to be higher. It had such excellent character arcs.
- Wanda overcomes her grief and begins to stand up for herself more. She also utters what one, if not the, truest statements in the MCU when she said "I can't control their fear only my own."
- T'Challa overcomes his rage and desire for vengeance after witnessing what it had done to Zemo and Tony Stark.
- Ant-man finally gets to be a part of the team.
- Spider-man's desperate quest for approval begins.
- Steve and Tony's split that began back in Age of Ultron explodes and both men have to make tough choices that may or may not haunt them.
5. Infinity War.

HM: Iron Man 2. I know it's far from a great movie (let alone good for most people), but I've probably watched more than some of my top five and it has some excellent scenes that still hold up.

Top 3 for me are probably fairly unsurprising, and fairly self-explanatory.

1: Infinity War- a film that, on paper, should be an absolute mess, but instead represents the culmination of a decade of filmmaking and worldbuilding while still being a great movie in its own right. One of the MCU's best villains (Thanos is in no way sympathetic or 'right', as some try to argue, but Brolin's performance elevates him way beyond many of the MCU's one-use punching bags). Of all of the MCU's efforts, I also love how IW captures the feel of a big, dumb comic book crossover. The seemingly random teamups, the crazy far-flung subplots that all come together at the end.... It's a genuine masterpiece.

2: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2- GotG was bold, fresh and just a little crazy, but it worked brilliantly. The second, however, does an even better job of building on that. The much more personal story, making better use of its brilliant soundtrack than its predecessor, and the perfect blend of comedy and genuinely emotional scenes, it just comes together so brilliantly. Throw in some very inventive visuals and you've got a cracking movie.

3: Civil War- Honestly, there are days where I'd say this beats GotG2. Not only do the Russo brothers make their case for handling Avengers movies here, juggling a massive cast and managing to give all of them some of their best character beats of the entire franchise, but you have RDJ giving his most nuanced performance to date, Boseman instantly making an impression as T'Challa without taking a load of time out to set up his own movie and a brilliant introduction to Holland's Spidey. Plus, maybe the best action set piece in the entire MCU, in the form of the airport battle. Zemo as a villain is somewhat underused and under any form of scrutiny his plan falls apart, but he does a good enough job of getting the plot rolling so Cap and Stark can have some of their best development.


After this, it gets a little tricky. Winter Soldier should be up here for being one of the first MCU movies to break away from their storytelling formula, and for doing tremendous things for Cap's character. Avengers Assemble just for bringing the cast together, and capturing that comic book spirit on screen better than anything that had gone before it. Captain Marvel deserves a mention, for being easily the best of the MCU's origin movies and again, breaking away somewhat from the standard narrative formula, along with Larson's excellent performance. Black Panther likewise, for Boseman and Jordan's amazing work and some very impressive design work. GotG for sheer originality and making audiences root for a talking racoon and a treeman.

Today, I'm going to go:
4: Winter Soldier
5: Captain Marvel

But that could be entirely different this time tomorrow. I guess instead of ranking, I should probably just enjoy the fact that out of the MCU, there's only 6 films that I wouldn't happily watch at the drop of a hat!

Given the positive opinions, I’m gonna be rewatching GotG2 soon, see if it takes GotG’s spot on my list. But yeah, I haven’t added reasons for why each movie makes my top 5, largely due to everyone else already saying why they’re so flipping awesome. The one exception is Ant-Man and the Wasp; I really appreciated how it broke the super hero mold, and was FAR different from the other MCU movies. There was no villain, nobody died; it was just a couple people trying to fix a horrible scientific mistake, and the heroes figuring out what happened and working to help correct it. It was a heist, a rescue, and fallout from CW. It fit in perfectly while acting nothing like the other hero movies. And the character interactions were perfect. Michael Pena was hilarious (again), and may have been my favorite side character in any MCU movie.

Never got around to watching ant Man and the wasp properly, seeing other people say it's good means I'm gonna give it another try.

 Elbows wrote:
I'll be honest, the only three MCU films which have wow'ed me more than "big budget popcorn film" were (in no real order)

1) Iron Man (refreshingly different at the time and it was nice to see RDJ back on the horse)

2) Guardians of the Galaxy

3) Spider Man (whatever the latest non-animated one is)

And honestly it's being a bit generous. I see all of these as light-hearted popcorn films and very little else. I don't think any of them hold a candle to genuinely quality movies/films...but I also don't expect them to. Just entertainment.

I would support this but I would add Iron Man II and switch out GoG II for G of G. It felt more like an old style spielberg movie to me than an MCU film. AS for IM II the movie is ok but I love Mickey Rourke's and Sam Rockwell's characters and acting in it. I'm an old Rourke fan...

Frankly I much prefer the Venom and Deadpool movies to everything on that list.

For me, Ant-Man and The Wasp is probably down the bottom of my list, even beyond Thor The Dark World.

As I mentioned in the OP, that doesn't mean it's not a good film in it's own right. It is. Entertaining, good visuals and despite the size shifting, ultimately very human.

But from the comments I get why people do rate it higher. Shall have a re-watch with those thoughts in mind

I definitely appreciated AMaTW more on the second watch. One one hand, it is one of the more disposable MCU movies, but on the other, it knows exactly what it's trying to do and just nails that.

It's also a comedy sequel that doesn't rely too much on dragging up jokes from the last one, which is always good, there's certainly some callbacks but plenty of very funny original material in there as well.

Still prefer the first Ant-Man though, just as it's so delightfully fresh.

The new Endgame trailer is up, btw. Just got a “heads up” from Marvel. It looks awesome. I’ll try to post a link when I’m back on the desktop and not my phone.

Can we please do anything Endgame-related in a separate thread? I don't imagine I'm alone in wanting to go into it having seen/heard/read as little as possible.

That was my plan; and it's already up. I was just announcing it here since we're on an MCU kick in the thread.

Hmmm, I am going to try to remember my first reactions to these movies while I rate them and not everything that has gone on after them.....

1. Winter Soldier- This is still my favorite. It really lets Cap shine and plays in the superhero espionage world.

2. Avengers Assemble- I went to the cinema, and a 10 year old kid was in front of me. When Thor, Iron Man, and Cap throw down in Germany we pretty much had the same reaction. Jaw-dropping. Plus, the speech the normal human gives to Loki insted of kneeling was pretty awesome, if cliche. It was also nice to see that the focus of all the superheroics was about saving people and not just beating up the bad guys.

3. Black Panther- My daughter has always had a soft spot for this character since Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and this flick proved why he is one cool cat.

4. Ant-Man- Completely not what I was expecting. Lower stakes, more personal stakes and lots of fun moments.

5. Captain America: The First Avenger- I love the Pulpy feel of this one. It was like the Rocketeer but amped way up. I know it was not to everyone's taste, but I really loved it. I maybe a Cap fanboy though.

Of course, the first Iron Man gets an honorable mention for kicking it all off and Civil War for really driving home what drives some of these key characters. Black Panther's arc in Civil War was amazing.

The funny thing about the MCU is there are so many good movies that something can be great and rank pretty low. My reaction to Captain Marvel was that it was one of the best solo origin films and ended up not cracking my top 10 and still.... my second highest rated origin film.

GotG2 is one I struggle with. It feels like a better film than the original, but also a film I feel like I want to skip around to the best parts. I think its mostly because Starlord is kind of sidelined and the team doesn't interact quite as much as the original. The new interactions in the side stories are phenomenal (Yondu/Rocket/Baby Groot being stand out) but I just keep wishing there was more time with the team as a whole.

I don't really have time to do this to myself, but I really need to rewatch the bottom of my list to see where they shake out. I think only the bottom 3 are real duds, but its hard to say how they actually rank. All of them have memorable bits but the pacing kind of drags.

Hmmm ...

In no particular order, and thinking of the ones I'd like to watch again, I'd say

Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers Assemble
Thor Ragnarok
Iron Man
Ant Man

With Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain Marvel close behind.

 Easy E wrote:

5. Captain America: The First Avenger- I love the Pulpy feel of this one. It was like the Rocketeer but amped way up. I know it was not to everyone's taste, but I really loved it. I maybe a Cap fanboy though.

I've got a real love for this one as well, it's not quite able to break into my top handful but it's still one of my favourites, and easily my favourite solo movie of Phase 1. From the start, Evans was the perfect choice for Steve and absolutely sold him even before the serum, which was crucial. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull was as comically over-the-top villainous as he needed to be, and the supporting cast were great fun as well. The somewhat darker, more grounded visual style compared to its colourful predecessors was also great, and set the tone for what the Russos would do later.

And it's still got the best Cap costume! I remember be so pleased when he donned the original suit for the finale of Winter Soldier.

I think for me, Cap might actually have the best comic book movie trilogy. Smashes Iron Man, Thor out of the water, and I reckon it's probably more coherent and entertaining that The Dark Knight trilogy as well. It's basically 3 films I can't fault.

Winter Soldier
Homecoming
The rest of them
Age of Ultron

Infinity War because I'm a Thanos fanboy.
Thor: Ragnarok for the originality and humour.
Winter Soldier because it was so well-grounded.

Ànt-man because it was just plain fun.
Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 are tied.

I'm a huge fan of the greater, cosmic level of the Marvel Universe, having collected and read a lot of the older stuff through the 80's and 90's. I'm hoping for a good interpretation of Adam Warlock for the MCU.
Some have been better than others, but when I watch these movies, I'm only looking for a decent on screen interpretation of what I knew as a kid, and so far Marvel has been pretty consistent. While I think some are fantastic and others mediocre, I've found them all entertaining and enjoyable.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

5. Captain America: The First Avenger- I love the Pulpy feel of this one. It was like the Rocketeer but amped way up. I know it was not to everyone's taste, but I really loved it. I maybe a Cap fanboy though.

I've got a real love for this one as well, it's not quite able to break into my top handful but it's still one of my favourites, and easily my favourite solo movie of Phase 1. From the start, Evans was the perfect choice for Steve and absolutely sold him even before the serum, which was crucial. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull was as comically over-the-top villainous as he needed to be, and the supporting cast were great fun as well. The somewhat darker, more grounded visual style compared to its colourful predecessors was also great, and set the tone for what the Russos would do later.

And it's still got the best Cap costume! I remember be so pleased when he donned the original suit for the finale of Winter Soldier.

I think for me, Cap might actually have the best comic book movie trilogy. Smashes Iron Man, Thor out of the water, and I reckon it's probably more coherent and entertaining that The Dark Knight trilogy as well. It's basically 3 films I can't fault.

I think Cap 1 is probably the most underrated film in the set. Honestly, if the finale confrontation between Cap and Skull had been..... anything really, it would be almost flawless. The weird non-end to their conflict really warps the perspective on the rest of it.

Hmm. Having not seen Captain Marvel, Ant and Wasp or Black Panther;

Top-
Guardians 1
Thor 3
Avengers 1


Middle
a lot get pretty samey. They're fine films (especially given the general poor quality of 21st century hollywood), but they don't really stand out.

Bottom
Dr. Strange (sadly. I wanted to like this more, but its too much of an origin story movie and just drags, and the villain and the moral with the ancient one aren't even vaguely interesting)

Iron Man 3 (I get what they were trying to do with the 'mandarin,' but it just didn't work beyond a chuckle at the reveal. And wossname and whoever didn't make me care about an absurdly boring attempt at AIM. Tony's psych issues aren't that compelling either.

All the Cap movies. Yeah. Sorry. Boring, with 1 best of the bunch and Civil War the worst. Just pointless melodrama that could have been stopped with a conversation or two, and a crazy scheme that had no reason to work. And the moral that came out of it was exactly the opposite of what I suspect they intended (but I can only guess that's what they intended because it was titled 'Captain America Civil War' and not 'Avengers Civil War')

I suspect part of my problem with the Captain America films is he spends so much of his superhero time kicking the crap out of normal people, which doesn't seem heroic at all. This is magnified in 3 when he's crippling police going about their actual job, trying to apprehend a reasonable murder suspect, because he's an actual known assassin. [Yes, knocking police officers down flights of stairs with a battering ram is going to cripple them]

Spiderman Homecoming. I managed about 5 minutes of the kid babbling insanely at his phone and turned it off. Maybe kids today are really like that or something, but it wasn't anything I wanted to watch.

What's interesting in all this is how differently people get value out of the same film. I very much like Iron Man 3 for the tone (which overcomes the awful use of suits), while others can't stand it at all. Black Panther is overblown humdrum, yet some people thought it was worthy of the Oscar for best film (which just goes to show that some people's opinions can be objectively wrong). The original Captain America is derided for its generic and boring plotline and pacing, but I love it for its wonderful sincerity and heart.

The one I find the strangest is Guardians 2. So many have it in their top 5 (or 10) and complement it's warmth and themes. I find it a wretched film, far worse than anything else in the MCU, with no redeeming qualities - the polar opposite of Guardians 1.

It is interesting, isn't it? Much of it depends on what characters you connect with, and what types of films you enjoy. I've found I'm no longer really in it for serious superhero movies, I just want to have a good time.

From that standpoint of seeking pure amusement-

Thor Ragnarok (They had to replace the sets daily with how eagerly the bad guys devoured the scenery- best portrayal of over the top crazy bad guys since M Bison)
Guardians of the Galaxy (Just a blast)
Ant Man and the Wasp (everyone is obviously having such a good time making this thing- baba yaga!)
GotG 2 (Yondu's electric boogaloo)
Avengers (Whedon's at his best with a large cast and random interactions, and this one shows it well.)

After the lumpen uneven jumble that was Infinity War I've given up and assumed the run peaked at Ragnorok and stopped

Although got my common sense stick ready to dole out thinking skills anyone overgushing regarding Cpt Marvel

anyhoo back on topic

1) Ragnorok
2) Cap 1
3) Cap 2
4) Antman
5) Ironman 1