Every non-MCU Marvel film, ranked from worst to best

Before Ghost Rider, Mark Steven Johnson made his first foray into superhero films with Ben Affleck as the titular blind lawyer turned Man Without Fear. certainly isn’t lacking in style, and its Nu Metal aesthetics and soundtrack (Evanescence’s “My Immortal” for the win) have invited quite a bit of nostalgia in recent years. The screenplay leaves a lot to be desired as it attempts to take on too much in too little time, something the Director’s Cut improves upon a little bit. The cast of characters, Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Foggy Nelson (Jon Favreau), Ben Urich (Joe Pantoliano), Bullseye (Colin Farrell), and especially Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan), nearly make up for the silliness of the playground fight between Daredevil and Elektra, as does the final fight between Daredevil and Kingpin.

Hopes were high for , a prequel that was supposed to delve into Wolverine’s time at Weapon X, and utilize his recently revealed comic book origin story. Unfortunately, the meat of that story is constrained to the opening credits and a truncated transformation scene later that doesn’t match the body horror vibes that were teased in X-Men and X2. And yet, despite the disappointing elements and rough CGI, Hugh Jackman is still undeniably committed to the role, and gives more than the screenplay or the filmmaking does. Praise also goes to Liev Schreiber’s portrayal of Victor Creed and the script’s decision to make them brothers. The film also loses points for its absolutely baffling depiction of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) which, thankfully, was later rectified. It’s a chaotic film, but an entertaining one nonetheless.

For the most part, Tim Story’s gets the characterization of the superhero team right. Chris Evans obviously steals the show as The Human Torch, but Gruffudd, Chiklis, and Alba all do a solid job as Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, and the Invisible Woman, respectively. Where the film falters is in its depiction of Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon). Despite the smart decision to make him part of Richards’ ill-fated space voyage, Doom is a generic CEO type who simply isn’t that interesting, or a big enough threat to make for a convincing adversary. But the film manages to balance comedy—though some of it is admittedly outdated—and emotional turmoil pretty well, especially where The Thing is concerned. No, it’s not a great film, but it’s pretty good for what it’s trying to be.

The biggest hurdle facing Jonathan Hensleigh’s is that it’s hard to separate it from a hundred other generic revenge movies. Thomas Jane is good as Frank Castle while John Travolta has fun hamming it up as crime boss Howard Saint, and the switch of locales from NYC to Florida is welcome. But there’s still nothing particularly memorable about the movie, which is also an issue with bottom-tier Punisher comics, in that they’re fine shoot ’em up stories but they don’t offer much. Garth Ennis’ works are a big exception, and despite the film drawing from those comics, they stray too far to make their mark. The Punisher is fine, but the character is better served by the psychologically-charged Netflix series starring John Bernthal.

2020's was something of a mutant itself: the film was the subject of months of reshoot gossip; its original studio, 20th Century Fox, was sold to Disney who didn’t like the film all that much; new editors were brought in to recut it; then it turns out reshoots never happened because the cast was too old; and when it was finally gifted a very belated release, it was during a global pandemic. All this doesn’t necessarily augur a bad film but, in this case, well, yes it does. Positioned as a YA horror film cum superhero origin story cum Stephen King adaptation, The New Mutants features a quintet of teens—including Indigenous, Latino, and lesbian characters—who find themselves trapped in a psychiatric institute led by a mysterious doctor with designs on their burgeoning mutant gifts. Despite hewing to comic book legend Chris Claremont’s ’80s era comic that was a spin-off of the X-Men, the movie is a misfire from the concept stage. It feels too far removed from the X-Men films to live in their universe and it’s too larded with horror tropes to justify being a multi-film series. Considering how Bryan Singer’s X-Men series was a brilliant allegory about LGBTQ intolerance, The New Mutants concludes the X-Men franchise—until Disney relaunches it—on a disappointing note.

is actually good. Daniel Espinosa’s film got sucked into meme culture, making any earnest conversations about it dry up all too quickly. As a concept, Morbius doesn’t stray far from the comic book source material, and despite Jared Leto’s behind-the-scenes method acting antics, his portrayal of Dr. Michael Morbius, a man facing his own mortality, is compelling. Self-serious for such a silly concept? Sure. But so are the comics. There’s enough humor and energy brought to the film by Matt Smith’s Milo to make up for some of the film’s narrative shortcomings. And Espinosa brings a unique visual style to the living vampires’ display of powers. There should be more to it, but it’s an entertaining B-movie that really isn’t that far off in quality from the Venom movies or the early 2000s Marvel flicks that folks have discovered a nostalgia for.

A step down from the previous two X-Men movies, is another case of a single movie cramming too much into its runtime and a director who doesn’t have the skillset to tackle a story of such ambition. Despite trying to fit the Dark Phoenix and mutant cure storylines into one film—and director Brett Ratner’s lack of style—the capable cast makes this fun to watch, regardless of how it haphazardly kills off characters (RIP Cyclops) and pays homage to YouTube videos (“I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”). The additions of Kelsey Grammer, Elliot Page, and Ben Foster as Beast, Kitty Pryde, and Angel, respectively, add some entertainment value. And Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen both give strong performances as Wolverine and Jean Grey, especially during the climax.

Simon Kinberg’s had the misfortune of releasing at a time when everyone already knew the X-Men were set to receive an MCU reboot down the line. While the movie doesn’t come close to the epicness of the comic books’ Dark Phoenix Saga, and it possesses many of the same issues as The Last Stand, there’s something commendable about Kinberg aiming for a smaller, more character-driven X-Men film focused on Jean Grey’s (Sophie Turner) growing, uncontrollable powers. The Dark Phoenix Saga probably wasn’t the right story for this sequel, but the First Class cast always played off each other beautifully and that remains true here. Turner’s performance, the climatic train battle, and Hans Zimmer’s score are all highlights marking the end of an era for a franchise.

Andy Serkis’ Venom sequel heightens the camp quality of the first film, and features both Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson chewing up scenery left and right as Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady. Adding Shriek (Naomie Harris) into the mix gives the film a chaotic energy that taps into the feeling of ’90s comics. The film could use another 20 minutes to flesh out some of its ideas and the decision to kill Carnage is lamentable but is lightweight fun, and a nice reprieve from the grand scale of the MCU. It’s a big goopy monster movie, which seems to be the approach to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe thus far.

Oddly enough, doesn’t work for the same reason that some of the films in the MCU don’t work: a surfeit of plot. We have the villainous Electro (Jamie Foxx), a new Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) leaving for Oxford University, more about Peter Parker’s parents, corporate shenanigans at Oscorp, and a throwaway appearance by the Rhino (Paul Giamatti) meant to suggest an expanded rogues gallery of Spider-villians that never materialized. It’s all a bit overstuffed although the chemistry between Garfield and Stacy remains supercharged, right up until her comics-inspired death scene, which will bring a tear to even the most Spider-averse eyes. The flying shots are spectacular and returning director Marc Webb sneaks in some beautiful moments, like the shot of Peter at Gwen’s gravesite with the seasons changing behind him. ASM2 was released a month before the fantastic , the ninth MCU film. Before long, the MCU would also get bogged down in world building but, for what it’s worth, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 did it first.

For a time, it seemed like Bryan Singer’s was as close to the comics as a film would ever get. We know better now, of course, although the quality of the X-Men films has somewhat lessened in hindsight over the decades since. Undoubtedly, Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellan), and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) make for compelling characters, but most of the other X-Men, except Rogue (Anna Paquin), are kinda pushed to the side when it comes to development, something that would plague the X-Men franchise for the next decade. Plus, this first film’s Matrix-inspired costuming and action sequences both feel dated, and it’s slightly embarrassed by source material that Singer wasn’t interested in. But what works is the compelling drama, and the queer-coded lens through which mutants are explored.

The spirit of ’90s comics is alive and well in . Despite the modern conception of the symbiote as dark, frightening, and something deserving of an R-rating, the truth is that ’90s Venom was very goofy. Ruben Fleischer leans into the odd couple pairing of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom, resulting in a weird buddy-romance movie that’s delightful in how shameless and unselfconscious it is. Absurdist moments like Brock climbing into a lobster tank, Anne (Michelle Williams) bonding with the symbiote and making out with Eddie, and Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) monologuing about being God, all point to a film that knows exactly what it is. Plus, that Eminem theme song is a banger.

Five years after Tobey Maguire hung up his Spidey suit, Sony handed it to Andrew Garfield who had the unenviable task of presiding over the same origin story for what seemed like the umpteenth time. But the studio wisely handed directing chores to Marc Webb—whose only previous feature was the wonderful 2009 indie romance r—and hired James Vanderbilt (), Steve Kloves (seven films) and two-time Oscar winner Alvin Sargent to write the script. Together they brought the requisite amount of thrills while also adding a love story—with Emma Stone as Peter Parker’s GF, Gwen Stacy—and an emotionally involving story of teen angst. There are darker overtones here that were a bit surprising for a superhero film of that time and that wear well today. Sure, the Lizard is just a reptilian riff on Green Goblin and the introduction of Peter’s parents—wait, he had parents?!—wound up adding little emotional depth. But the flying sequences and fight scenes are top notch and Garfield and Stone have great chemistry. So if we absolutely had to have yet another Spider-Man movie, be glad it was this one.

The first Deadpool was such a tornado of superhero cinema-skewering mockery, such a wickedly fun and refreshingly vicious work of crackpot genius that you can’t blame Ryan Reynolds and Co. for bringing (much) more of the same in . The film expands the Deadpool universe by adding the always badass Josh Brolin as the cyber-soldier Cable and the superhero team, X-Force. Otherwise Reynolds plays the Merc with a Mouth as a bottomless well of snark. Were it not for Reynold’s preternatural ability to be simultaneously charming and nasty, the film would have felt like a retread of the first installment from Frame One. David Leitch, producer of the John Wick series and director of Bullet Train, has a blast marshalling the mayhem as director. Come for the laughs, stay for the post-credit dig at Green Lantern that had theater audiences rolling in the aisle.

, the follow-up to Days Of Future Past, is big, bombastic, goofy, and the closest any of the team-centric X-Men films have come to the comics and the beloved X-Men: The Animated Series. It also has the benefit of not being Wolverine centric and allowing some of the other characters to shine, though once again there’s too many of them for everyone to get the screentime they deserve. Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are particularly welcome additions as the new Jean Grey, Cyclops and Nightcrawler, respectively. And while the design choice for Apocalypse, and the decision to cake Oscar Isaac in blue makeup to the point of unrecognizability may have been a mistake, he does add a new wrinkle to the familiar dynamics of Xavier versus Magneto and their warring ideals. It doesn’t have the craft of the more beloved X-Men films, but it is one of the more entertaining entries.

In , James Mangold rescues the reputation of the Wolverine franchise after the subpar Origins by taking cues from Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s much-beloved Japan saga. Mangold brought a clear sense of style and character development to Wolverine, away from the X-Men, and Hugh Jackman gives one of his best performances in the series as Logan searches for a new purpose. Rila Fukushima is a welcome addition as Wolverine’s partner Yukio, and the film features great turns from Tao Okamoto, Will Yun Lee, Brian Tee, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Mangold also brings a deep sense of style with neo-noir and martial arts film influences. While the third act perhaps takes too hard a turn into CGI heavy superhero action, it’s a damn good Wolverine film, one made even better by the unrated cut.

, Ryan Reynolds’ passion project, not only provided him with the opportunity to redeem the character’s association with Origins, it also launched the only franchise, so far, successful enough to be grandfathered into the MCU. The R-rated superhero comedy from Tim Miller stays faithful to the spirit of the comics with respect to Wade Wilson’s (Reynolds) origin story and fourth wall-breaking antics. The film’s personal stakes and focus on Wade’s romance with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) are a welcome reprieve from the world-ending stakes so often at the center of these films. The ultraviolent action doesn’t pull any punches, and works in tandem with the gross-out humor to make Deadpool a crowd-pleaser.

While Sam Raimi’s caught a lot of flack upon release—and ended that iteration of the Spider-Man franchise—it has since become more respected, particularly in terms of Raimi’s visual craft. From Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) first clash with Harry Osborn (James Franco) to the crane sequence and the final showdown, Raimi has little competition when it comes to inventive set pieces and playful camerawork. The studio mandate to insert Eddie Brock/Venom (Topher Grace) into the film was a mistake, particularly given Raimi’s disinterest in the character. What does work is the addition of the Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church) as a tragic movie monster, and Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). Plus, Harry Osborn adds tension to Peter and Mary Jane’s (Kirsten Dunst) relationship. There’s silly stuff here, but there’s also a maturity in the handling of its characters as they grapple with their changing place in the world as adults.

In , Guillermo del Toro brought a fresh sense of style to Marvel’s vampire hunter, pushing the film further into comic book territory and creating some of the most memorable vampires to ever grace the screen: the Reapers. The film doesn’t quite have the same sense of pathos as the first, but it makes up for that with action, bloodshed, and Blade’s (Wesley Snipes) dynamic with the Bloodpack, which works far better than it does with the Nightstalkers in the previous film. One of the great beauties of del Toro’s filmmaking is that he crafts emotionally complex fairy tales set against the background of socio-political concerns, and he can also conjure up fun nightmares of pure vampire carnage and one-liners.

, Bryan Singer’s second X-Men film, improves upon the first in every way, pulling from Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s comic God Loves Man Kills. It’s still a Wolverine film first and foremost, digging deeper into the character’s Weapon X origins and pitting him against his creator, William Stryker (Brian Cox), who seeks to rid the world of mutants. But forcing the X-Men and the Brotherhood to work together better highlights the tension between Xavier and Magneto’s respective visions, with Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) at the center of that conflict. New additions like Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming)—who stuns in the film’s opening sequence—and Deathstrike (Kelly Hu) give the action scenes additional versatility. Ultimately, it’s the character drama and performances from Jackman, McKellan, Stewart, and Cox that make a standout in the franchise.

Matthew Vaughn’s prequel/reboot saved the X-Men franchise after the poor reception of The Last Stand and Origins. Vaughn brought the characters back to the 1960s and the world their comic book counterparts were created in, making for a fresh feeling superhero period piece. And outside of a brief cameo, Wolverine ceded the spotlight to Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) so they could play crucial roles in Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto’s (Michael Fassbender) dreams for the future of mankind. Speaking of which, Xavier and Magneto’s doomed bromance is the highlight of the film and the chemistry between the two heightens the film’s emotional stakes. Kevin Bacon also shines as mutant and former Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw, who fractures the first team of mutants.

While X-Men tends to get most of the credit for starting the modern age of Marvel, it was that proved comic book characters could be a hot theatrical commodity. Yet when Blade came out in 1998 very few audiences were aware that he was based on a comic book character. Comic book readers familiar with the series Tomb Of Dracula and The Nightstalkers were familiar but for everyone else it was just Wesley Snipes being cool as a hybrid vampire hunter and that was enough. Director Stephen Norrington grounded the comic book aspects long before “grounded” ever became a Hollywood buzzword, while also imbuing the film with a sense of charming menace. The opening nightclub bloodbath is an all-timer in the genre, and despite some dodgy CGI in the third act, Blade still holds up as one of the most revisited comic book movies in recent years, especially as Blade’s popularity has increased.

Bryan Singer returned to the X-Men series with , an adaptation of one of the most popular and beloved X-Men stories. The result bridged the First Class narrative with post-Last Stand landscape, bringing back the original X-Men and their new counterparts. Continuity issues be damned, in a post-Avengers landscape, an X-Men movie finally felt like an event film. The introduction of Quicksilver (Evans Peters) and the mutant-hunting robots called the Sentinels resulted in several standout action sequences in the long-running franchise. There’s also something powerful in the future of the mutant race coming down to Mystique who over the course of 15 years evolved from sexy sidekick to the heart of the franchise. The alternate Rogue Cut gives Anna Paquin’s character a more central role, bringing the franchise full-circle from the 2000 film, and giving the series an emotional resolution … at least for a little bit.

One of the best superhero origin stories ever put to screen, Sam Raimi’s fully captured the wonder of superheroes and their ability to inspire—especially in a post-9/11 landscape—while never forgetting the human element that makes these characters work. There’s an earnestness to Tobey Maguire’s portrayal of Peter Parker that lends itself to the joy and tragedy of the character. Raimi’s New York City feels alive and lived in, not a CGI world populated with expendable citizens, but a city in which every player has a personality that adds to the flavor of the world. And speaking of personality, Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn is magnetic, finding just the right tonal balance to make Osborn seem like a menace and a believable human being. And that’s really what’s so key to Raimi’s vision; there’s a believability to all of it.

James Mangold followed up The Wolverine with , a stylish treatise on the character that grapples with his place in a violent world, his nature, and his legacy. Part neo-Western, and part road movie, Logan’s (Jackman) journey of finding himself again through his genetic clone, Laura (Dafne Keen), with the help of his mentor Charles Xavier (Stewart), results in a violent and often moving examination of life and death. After 17 years in their roles, Jackman and Stewart both deliver their most powerful performances as these characters, showcasing the fragility of some of pop-culture’s seemingly indestructible figures. And as superhero movies continued to increase in size, stakes, and their hold in the zeitgeist, Mangold reminded audiences that, at their core, these characters’ personal stories are what’s most memorable and heroic.

Sam Raimi’s is not only one of the best superhero movies ever, it’s one of the best sequels, period. Everything that was true of 2002’s Spider-Man remains true here, and its not just the physical stakes that are heightened with the arrival Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) but the emotional ones as well, as Peter is forced to grapple with what he wants and what’s best. Even damsel-in-distress Mary Jane (Dunst) is given an equally powerful arc as she finds her own place in the world of adulthood, helping make Spider-Man 2 a character driven, psychological examination of responsibility and maturity. The concept has rarely been explored better in these films, and on top of that, it features some of the best action sequences to grace the genre. Superhero films are often fun, but very few are masterpieces on the level of Spider-Man 2.