Marvel Comics adaptations have ruled the global box office for years. And with dozens of Marvel movies made over the last (nearly) two decades, there is plenty of variety for fans to choose from. Here are all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe grouped by tier.
The Ultimate Marvel Movie Tier List (2024)
S-Tier
These are the movies that the MCU will be remembered for, from the tightly crafted Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy to the epic crossovers of Avengers: Infinity War and Captain America: Civil War. As the MCU continued into 2014, it seemed to have found its footing, putting out some of the best movies produced by Marvel Studios to date, a distinction that carried through the end of the Infinity Saga. However, even before then, Marvel Studios had earned well-deserved accolades for previous efforts, particularly 2008’s Iron Man and 2012’s The Avengers.
The best Marvel movies also find a way to organically incorporate the MCU’s usual sense of humor with the gags coming off as forced or just plain unfunny. Taken at their own merits, apart from the superhero action and shared universe, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecoming are both very funny movies. This effective humor is especially apparent in Thor: Ragnarok, with the fantasy hero repositioned to be more of a cosmic figure leaning into filmmaker Taika Waititi’s penchant for absurd comedy.
The underlying elements in this top tier of Marvel movies are that the voices of the filmmakers are evident throughout the films they’ve helmed and that the characters themselves don’t get lost in the CG shuffle. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark are very much front and center in their respective movies, with the story just as interested in them out of their usual costumes as when they’re actively saving the day. At their best, MCU movies stand at the upper echelon of the superhero genre, and fortunately, there are a number of movies that reach this pinnacle.
A-Tier
Something that’s always important to note is that anything in the A-tier doesn’t denote that the movies certainly aren’t bad; they’re all quite good. They just don’t quite hit the same level of quality that the movies in the top tier do, often by small margins. The MCU has an enormous number of movies that fit within this criteria, great in their own right with their fair share of dedicated and vocal fans, but just not among the absolute best that the MCU has to offer.
Both Black Panther movies are prime examples of this, with their stunning vision of Afrofuturism and magnificent ensemble casts, but with noticeably poor visual effects and running perhaps a bit longer than they should. The pacing on many of the more recent MCU movies tends to be a common weakness, along with weaker final acts that rely too heavily on CG animation as they struggle to stick the landing. This is also true of the otherwise fantastic Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, so close to achieving upper-echelon MCU greatness.
Movies like Captain America: The First Avenger and 2016’s Doctor Strange demonstrate an MCU still in the midst of growing pains as the shared universe and its tonalities continue to gel, but there’s still a solid foundation there. And as great as Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 are, it does feel like each movie could benefit from running for about 15 minutes shorter. Still, all the movies in this tier are highly entertaining and well worth checking out, especially for a full MCU rewatch.
Related: Carrie-Anne Moss Confirms Her MCU Status
B-Tier
The movies relegated to the B-Tier are where the MCU formula becomes much more noticeable, from uneven origin stories to sequels trying to find their way with their characters. That said, they’re still a good time at the movies, if only as a reliable popcorn movie that stands to be endlessly picked apart by discerning fans as they stop to think about them. Though the seams are starting to show with the movies in this quality crop, the escapist enjoyment remains solid throughout and these movies are still largely worth the time to revisit.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness are both sequels that diverge considerably from their predecessors, but the stories leave something to be desired. This similarly applies to The Marvels, though in what’s sure to be a hot take, the sequel is marginally better than its own respective predecessor. Iron Man 2 and Avengers: Age of Ultron both try to go deeper and darker with their stories, but are constrained from exploring this further given that they’re also trying to be studio-friendly blockbusters at the same time.
Ant-Man and Thor are both victims of being origin stories that don’t quite know what to do with their premise, from turning Thor into a fish-out-of-water tale to the troubled production behind Ant-Man. Deadpool & Wolverine, while certainly a blast to see working together, feels a bit off from what came before and can’t quite fully commit to integrating itself into the MCU, at least not yet. Again, all enjoyable viewing experiences in this tier, but the drop in quality is becoming increasingly apparent at this stage.
C-Tier
When people speak derisively about superhero movies and Marvel Studios projects, in particular, they’re likely thinking about the caliber of films assembled in this tier. The majority of the movies here aren’t unwatchable, but many, if not all of them, are forgettable, missing the mark as they introduce new heroes and carry established stories forward. And though Marvel Studios gets accused of being in the middle of a creative slump, movies at this level have existed for years, quietly released alongside more well-received contemporaries.
Films like Captain Marvel, Iron Man 3, and Spider-Man: Far From Home each earned over a billion dollars, but the overall quality of the movies themselves has proven divisive. With films like Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the MCU was enduring its own bonafide box office bombs after a long run of commercial successes. But at their worst, a movie like Thor: Love and Thunder proved too grating, with its sense of humor painfully unfunny no matter how hard it tried to get laughs – and it tried all too often.
Even with their developments for the larger shared universe, the thing linking all of the movies in this tier is that they all feel largely disposable in terms of what they bring to the table. The filmmakers’ voices, which elevated so many other MCU projects, are nowhere to be found in these movies, to their visible detriment. If there were ever MCU movies to skip, these ones should reach that dubious consideration first.
And that’s the ultimate Marvel movie tier list for 2024.
Published: Dec 5, 2024 08:09 am