The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has produced some of the top grossing films in the superhero genre and, in some cases, of all time. There are now so many movies out that anyone new to the franchise definitely wants to know in what order to watch them.
Marvel history
Marvel has been around since 1939 when a magazine publisher decided to capitalize on the craze for comic books. The very first Marvel characters in issue #1 were the Human Torch and Namor the Sub-Mariner.
More recently, Marvel Studios has made box-office hits about many of its major characters (although the X-Men films and some Spider-Man films were made by other studios). There’s no one right way to watch them. Some people think the best Marvel movie order should be chronological, while others prefer watching them by release date, and some prefer the order of popularity.
Below, we went with the “chronological” order of every single Marvel Studios movie so far, with one exception — we put Iron Man first since you should see that before Captain America.
Marvel movie order
Iron Man: It all starts with Iron Man. This is the second film chronologically (after Captain America: The First Avenger). We learn not only about Iron Man but we also get our first introduction to the Avengers. Make sure you wait until the credits are over to catch the final scene.
Captain America: The First Avenger: Although this was the fifth movie released by Marvel, it comes first in chronological order. Here we get introduced to the Tesseract.
The Incredible Hulk: The first film about the Hulk lets us see him without all the Avengers to get in his way.
Iron Man 2: We get to see Iron Man again at the end of The Incredible Hulk. This draws us back into his world and it means we’re ready to see more of Tony Stark.
Thor: Before you can appreciate the Avengers, you need to get familiar with the world of Asgard. In Iron Man 2, we are shown Thor’s hammer, which leads us neatly into this movie.
The Avengers: It’s time. We know about the Tesseract and we’ve been introduced to the main players.
Thor: The Dark World: We’re back among the gods in this film, and we get our first glimpse of The Collector.
Iron Man 3: To appreciate the next Avengers film, we have to delve more deeply into the psyche of Tony Stark.
Guardians of the Galaxy: With GofG, we feel very little connection to the rest of the Marvel world except for the presence of The Collector and an Infinity Stone.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: The sci-fi comedy’s sequel is hard to understand if you haven’t seen the original, so we recommend seeing this movie next.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier: In this film, we meet Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. If you don’t know about them, you’ll be a bit lost when you watch Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Avengers: Age of Ultron: Assuming you’ve seen at least a few other films on this list, you’re ready.
Ant-Man: This is a new direction, and at first you might be reluctant to go there. But it’s important to future movies and it leads clearly into Captain America: Civil War.
Captain America: Civil War: This is a tough one to watch, and it’s hard to say whose side you’ll be on at the end. But the movie does send us straight into Black Panther and Spider-Man.
Black Panther: This movie introduces us to Wakanda and expands upon the character of Black Panther from Civil War.
Spider-Man: Homecoming: We also need to know about Spider-Man in order to fully appreciate the most current Avengers film, Infinity War.
Doctor Strange: Marvel is setting us up for Infinity War, and it’s crucial to know all about Doctor Strange. At the end of this film, we are led into Thor: Ragnarok.
Thor: Ragnarok: This film is meant to lead us to Infinity War, which picks up right where Ragnarok leaves off.
Avengers: Infinity War: For the first time, we have all the characters together in one place. A lot happens in this movie, and no time is wasted on character introductions, so you could easily get lost if you don’t know who’s who.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: This is the last film to be released (so far) and the last one chronologically. But it won’t be the last film we get from Marvel.
