The Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Infinity Saga spanned just over a decade of filmmaking, beginning with Iron Man in 2008 and ending with Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019. Within The Infinity Saga, we were introduced to dozens of our favorite comic book superheroes in live action (for the first time, too, in many cases). What’s more, these movies effectively changed the film landscape as currently know it (for better and for worse, per The New York Times).
Regardless of your stance on comic book superhero movies, it cannot be denied how major an achievement was made by Marvel Studios with The Infinity Saga: with 23 interconnected movies that collectively raked in billions of dollars at the box office, the MCU became a world that many instantly fell in love with. It may be hard to pick the ten best Infinity Saga movies, but here’s what we think.
10/10 Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Although labeled as the third movie in the Captain America trilogy, everyone knows that Civil War feels more like an Avengers movie than anything else. It surely focuses on Steve’s storyline of having to say goodbye to Peggy and be willing to give up his life for his best friend Bucky, but it also introduces us to beloved new characters, such as Black Panther and Spider-Man. Of course, the main focus of the plot is the tension between and division of the Avengers due to the Sokovia Accords. These Accords were written to control the Avengers’ activities and use them as the government’s pawns. While Tony was in support of this oversight, Steve saw the dangers of government agendas. It received praise for its performances and action sequences.
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9/10 Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the last film of Phase Three, which makes it the last movie in The Infinity Saga. It felt like the right choice to have Far From Home close an important chapter of the MCU. It’s set right after the events of Avengers: Endgame, hence why it heavily focuses on Peter’s grief over Tony’s death and the pressure that he feels to become the next Iron Man. Tony had always been a father-figure / mentor for Peter, and now that he was gone, he was forced to find his own identity. It doesn’t exactly go as planned, when he gets easily fooled by a new character named Mysterio, who ends up revealing his identity to the world. Far From Home does a great job of depicting how a kid would deal with the loss of a loved one.
8/10 Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
The second movie of the Captain America franchise, The Winter Soldier, sees Steve Rogers joining forces with Black Widow and a new character called Falcon to defeat a deadly assassin. Although the two Avengers work for the S.H.I.E.L.D, they soon find out that the organization has been infiltrated by Hydra, and they can’t trust anyone. Everything becomes even more complicated when Steve finds out that the deadly assassin he is supposed to capture is his believed-to-be-dead best friend Bucky. Steve quickly changes his agenda from capturing and killing him to saving him. It has arguably some of the most iconic moments from The Infinity Saga, all thanks to Sebastian Stan’s amazing portrayal of the Winter Soldier and the chemistry between him and Chris Evans.
7/10 The Avengers (2012)
2012 was an exciting time for the MCU fanbase. The year marked the first time we got to watch our favorite superheroes in one movie: The Avengers. This movie reminds us of the simpler times, when the only enemy was the sneaky Loki, Thanos, and his army. Despite their initial differences, The Avengers are forced to work as a team, retrieve the Tesseract from Loki, and win the Battle of New York. Although the Avengers’ teamwork has never been entirely impeccable, we could observe the mutual distrust and skepticism that settled over the group, until they finally learned to somewhat trust each other.
6/10 Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
As the first movie in the Holland’s Spider-Man franchise, they decided to keep Homecoming somewhat light-hearted. Out of all the three movies so far, this one showcases Peter’s life as a student and a “normal” teenager the most. We get to see his child-like excitement, curiosity, and ambitions to help the world and make Tony proud. He falls in love with his classmate and wants to take her to prom, but soon realizes that she’s the daughter of the enemy: The Vulture. It serves as a great starting point to properly introduce Peter’s character and the direction he would take in future projects.
5/10 Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy introduced us to not only a new team of superheroes we hadn’t encountered before, but marked a departure from the MCU’s initially-grounded approach (per CBR). Yes, Thor also came from another planet, but James Gunn’s movie gave us a new insight into life across the entire universe. And boy, was it an enjoyable one! Although humor has always been present in the MCU, it wasn’t to the extent that Guardians of the Galaxy provided us with. Our new hero Peter Quill forms an unwilling group of differing individuals, Gamora, Groot, Rocket, and Drax, and they have to stop Ronan the Accuser from using the Power Stone. The comedy and the soundtrack are impeccable.
4/10 Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
You probably knew already that Thor: Ragnarok had to make the list. It stays the best movie in the Thor franchise to this day. Taika Waititi made an excellent choice to strip Thor of his Mjolnir and let us see his worth without his powers. Humor runs throughout the whole movie thanks to Thor, Loki, the Hulk, a new character of Valkyrie, and we get introduced to a badass female villain: Hela, the goddess of death. As a rightful successor of Odin’s throne, she swears to reign Asgard, and Thor has to stop her deadly advances, destroying Asgard in the process.
3/10 Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Although some were not satisfied with the grand ending of the Thanos storyline, Avengers: Endgame still has to be included in our list. It serves as the big conclusion to Thanos’ arc in The Infinity Saga and broke multiple box office records because of the sheer scale of the production and the inclusion of every superhero of the franchise. After Thanos disintegrated half of the universe, what was left of the Avengers team was forced to find a way to get back and get rid of him for good. Time travel is introduced to the plot, dead characters are brought back to life thanks to it, and we get to see the biggest fight in the history of superhero movies. Although it does have a bittersweet ending given Tony’s death, it felt like the right thing to do.
2/10 Iron Man (2008)
We couldn’t compile this list without including the movie that started it all: Iron Man. It introduces to us the playboy industrialist Tony Stark, who gets captured by a terrorist group and constructs a suit that helps him escape a cave. Once he returns home, he realizes that Stark Industries and its manufacturing of weapons does no good for the world, and decides to become Iron Man to help protect it instead. If it wasn’t for the commercial success of this spectacle, we probably wouldn’t have one of the biggest franchises in the entire world. Everyone, say “Thank you, Robert Downey Jr.”
1/10 Black Panther (2018)
Last but not least, we have to put King T’Challa in first place. With the recent premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we’ve once again realized the greatness of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. It took the MCU ten years to have a movie with a non-white superhero lead, but at least they eventually got there. This film focuses on T’Challa, played by the amazing Chadwick Boseman, as he returns to Wakanda to inherit the throne, following the events of Civil War. But he’s soon threatened by a powerful enemy who asserts the same claim to the throne. Also a first for the MCU, Black Panther explores issues of institutionalized racism, colonialism, and many more.
