DISNEY

11. Ant-Man

Budget: $130 million

Opening weekend: $57.2 million

Domestic Box Office: $180.2 million

Worldwide Box Office: $519.4 million

This somewhat offbeat and buttoned-down heist adventure benefits from being mostly disconnected from the larger MCU story. It’s Marvel’s smallest movie ($130 million), both regarding its pint-sized lead hero and its human scale. Paul Rudd makes a sympathetic Scott Lang, and Michael Douglas brings pathos to a somewhat generic grizzled vet role. The film is both a commentary and an example of Marvel’s sidelining of its female characters, but the end credit cookie promises a different path for the sequel. It’s a reminder that it’s the character work, not the plot or even the action, that makes the MCU so darn popular. The sequel was even better in almost every way, but this was still a heck of a fun movie considering how it was made.