With Avengers: Infinity War coming out this Friday, I decided to rank the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. These are based on how I felt towards the movies as I am not a movie critic nor a fanatic of the Marvel comics (I’m a DC comics guy anyways, but my god their movies in the DCEU have been atrocious). I’m not saying I never liked Marvel, in fact I like Marvel a lot, but I was more into their cartoons than comics. I am a huge nerd so basically every time a super hero movie comes out, I have to watch it. However, I have fallen in love with the MCU as I am a huge fanatic of their movies. Marvel has done a great job of these movies and each year they seem to get better. Anyways, let’s look at my rankings:

18. Iron Man 2

I thought the movie was atrocious. It felt like Marvel decided to be more flashy instead of just going with substance because of how successful the first one was. This is the worst of all the MCU films especially with one of the worst movie villains I have ever seen. It’s not even worth watching.

17. Thor: The Dark World

Well, this one wasn’t great at all. It was awkward with it’s humor, the plot felt forced, and a storyline that made things way too confusing. Just not a good film as it was incredibly awkward.

16. The Incredible Hulk

Admittedly, the first time I watched this film, I fell asleep. While I have seen the entirety of the film, I have never watch it all the way through. It was that boring of a film. The characters were not interesting at all and plot was just not that engaging. The best part of the film was when Tony Stark made his cameo.

15. Avengers: Age of Ultron

Yeah, Marvel really missed it on this one too. It felt sloppy and Ultron as a villain was unconvincing. I think it was the same deal as Iron Man 2, it was more flash than substance because of how successful the first one is. Marvel really screwed the pooch on this.

14. Iron Man 3

This will be a controversial placing for some people as lot’s of people liked it. After rewatching it, I felt like this movie wasn’t all that great. It was too confusing and I wasn’t heavily invested in the story line. Guy Pearce was actually a decent villain and makes up for a good amount of the movie, but I just did not think this was as great as people made it out to be. Oh and that The Mandarin plot twist? Absolutely stupid.

13. Thor

When I saw it the first time, I thought it was really good. Then, when rewatching a few weeks ago, this is what I thought of the film: Meh. Natalie Portman’s acting was subpar and the plot was only ok. There was potential with this film, but Marvel simply didn’t execute it.

12. Ant-Man

Now we are finally getting into the films that were at least “solid.” Ant-Man was a solid, but not great film. The humor was great and the plot was fun to follow along. Plus Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd were fantastic in the movie. After it was over, it made me anxious and excited to see the sequel, which comes out later this year.

11. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

While it wasn’t a bad film, I was genuinely disappointed, but that might be because I had high expectations. Wasn’t totally convinced by the antagonist in the film, Kurt Russell’s Ego, either and the plot was only ok. The humor, however, might have been better than the first.

10. Iron Man

Yeah, call me crazy, but I think this is a perfect spot for this film. While I liked the film, it wasn’t perfect. I also didn’t care for the ending, which hurts it’s standing, but I guess Marvel had to considering how Tony Stark’s position is within the MCU. But it was a start to the film series and the MCU as it was entertaining and had a pretty solid plot.

9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The Captain America film series is the best of all the other ones and the fact that this is the lowest rated one for me goes to show how good it is. Chris Evans was great in this film and the plot twist really had my mind boggled. Plus I loved how this was pretty much the first film to feature another major superhero from the MCU and that it introduced one of my favorites in the whole MCU with Falcon.

8. The Avengers

This movie was a lot of fun to watch. While I think Marvel could have made it even better than it was, nothing is perfect. Seeing these superheroes all on the screen at the same time made me geek out. All the actors had strong performances and it was a great film to introduce what we were about to see how the MCU was going to evolve. Definitely some cheesy moments, but this isn’t supposed to be a masterpiece.

7. Spiderman: Homecoming

I really enjoyed this movie and after rewatching, I liked it even more. The one downside was the final battle wasn’t the climax it could have been. Tom Holland does a nice job as Spiderman and has the potential of being the best Spiderman to play the role (Though I will always think of Tobey Maguire as the best). I just wish there was more of an origin story for Peter Parker like the others have had. But outside of that, it’s a good film.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger

I really, really, really liked this film. That might be because of the historical context of film and me being a history junkie though. I was shocked when I saw some people have it as low as 12th because I thought it was phenomenal. I also thought of all the Avengers, this was the best origin film. Plus Hugo Weaving is a great villain. Can we also cry about the love story between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter? Because I did.

5. Doctor Strange

This was a pretty good film. While I think Benedict Cumberbatch tried to oversell the movie with his acting (what I mean by that was I think he over acted if you catch my drift), he still was great. Plus the humor was pretty good too. The plot was easy to follow and I even thought the soundtrack was great.

4. Thor: Ragnarok

I watched this a second time the other day and I felt like it was better than I remembered. The humor was great and it certainly was redeeming considered how poor the other two did. I loved Tessa Thompson in this film as I think her character was awesome, Tom Hiddleston was at his best as Loki, I loved how the Hulk was used in the movie, and the introduction to Korg who might be the most hilarious character in the MCU. Oh and it had Jeff Goldblum. You can’t go wrong with him.

3. Captain America: Civil War

A perfect set up for Infinity War and it somewhat felt like more of an Avengers 2.5 instead of a Captain America film, but this was certainly a great flick. The plot was outstanding and the introduction of Black Panther was awesome. The fight scenes were pretty great. Your emotions will be torn a lot in this movie.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1

I will never not love this film. Maybe because I am a huge fan of Sci Fi and that’s why I liked it so much. All of the characters were great including Michael Rooker’s Yondu. This was also the film that made me fall in love with the MCU. The music on the other hand, whoever picked them out is a genius as the tunes were great. I still listen to that soundtrack.

1. Black Panther

While this was a milestone film for the African-American community, this was hands down the best movie in all of the MCU. Michael B. Jordan proved himself to be an outstanding actor as he portrayed the villain Killmonger. While a great villain, though in my opinion was a little overhyped, Jordan’s performance was captivating. Chadwick Boseman did a great job as T’Challa and Letitia Wright as Shuri, but I think one of the best was Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue. The plot was outstanding as well. Honestly, before I even went to go see it, it was the most excited I had ever been for an MCU movie, until obviously Infinity War.

Hopefully Infinity War will live up to my expectations as I am extremely excited for what is to come. It all comes down to this and I can’t wait to see it. Let me know what you think of my rankings.