The largest phase so far, these 12 films grossed over $13 billion and wrap up the Infinity Saga.
Captain America: Civil War
Dir. Anthony and Joe Russo Budget: $250 M Box Office: $1.153 B
IMDb: 7.8 Tomatometer: 90% Audience Score: 89%
The thirteenth film in the roster, and arguably one of the most important films of the franchise.
Just like the films that came before it, you don’t need to watch the previous films to understand what’s happening in this one.
However, having those films under your belt 100% makes this experience more enjoyable.
The Sokovia Accords are presented to the Avengers, which allows a UN panel to oversee their actions.
The reactions and decisions feel organic because they’re the culmination of our heroes past experiences.
It’s not just “well the comics did it, so we have to do it too!” It’s a natural progression of the overarching story.
The amount of world-building this film does is astounding, especially for it not being an ensemble film.
People want superheroes to face legal repercussions, even when doing the right thing.
T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is introduced during the ratification of the Accords, where his father is killed by an explosion.
Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) frames Bucky Barnes and manages to impersonate a psychiatrist to interview him once he’s detained.
It’s shown the Winter Soldier programming is activated by a string of key words, and Zemo learns the location of an old Hydra base in Siberia, where other super soldiers are kept in cryostasis.
Once Rogers brings Barnes back to reality, he recruits Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, and Scott Lang to stop Zemo before he can activate the other super soldiers.
Wanting to uphold the Accords, Stark attempts to stop them at the airport.
He enlists the help of Natasha Romanoff, T’Challa (Black Panther), Vision, James Rhodes, and Peter Parker (Tom Holland).
This scene is the introduction to Spider-Man to the MCU, and the divide of the Avengers.
Towards the end of the fight, Rogers and Barnes almost get into a plane, until they’re cornered by Stark and Romanoff.
Romanoff turns on Stark and gives the duo the opportunity they need to escape.
As they’re flying away, they’re being chased by Rhodes, who’s chased by Vision.
Before Rhodes can apprehend the plane, Vision blasts him, sending him falling out of the sky and leaving him partially paralyzed.
Once the rest of Roger’s team is detained and sent to The Raft, Stark learns that Zemo framed Barnes for the explosion, and convinces Wilson to share Roger’s location.
Barnes, Rogers, and Stark convene at the Hydra base, and unknown to them T’Challa followed them. The three find the corpses of the super soldiers, and Zemo shows footage of the Winter Soldier killing Stark’s parents from 1991.
After learning Rogers knew the whole time, Stark goes ballistic and fights the two super soldiers in front of him.
This fight does some serious damage: Barnes’ robotic arm is destroyed, Stark’s suit is left broken and unsalvageable, and Rogers leaves behind his shield.
After the fight, a satisfied Zemo tries to kill himself to be reunited with his family, but T’Challa stops and apprehends him.
The film ends with Rhodes being given exoskeletal leg braces, and Rogers breaking his team out of The Raft.
Mid-credits scene has Barnes going to Wakanda, requesting to be put into cryostasis until his brainwashing can be wiped.
Post-credits scene has Parker in his room, checking out his new web-shooters Stark sent to him.
Many credit Infinity War for having a villain that won, many just don’t remember that this film did it too.
While he was arrested at the end, he got exactly what he wanted.
He set out to divide the Avengers, and he accomplished just that.
Doctor Strange
Dir. Scott Derrickson Budget: $200 M Box Office: $677.8 M IMBd: 7.5
Tomatometer: 74% Audience Score: 85%
Fourteenth film, which introduces Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the MCU.
Beyond that, introduces the concept of a Sorcerer Supreme, sling rings which can open a portal to anywhere, and the final stone to be introduced: the time stone.
After a devastating car accident, Steven Strange seeks help and finds the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
She teaches him to be less arrogant, and he quickly learns the way of sorcery.
One thing he learns is how to bend time using the time stone, which is known as the Eye of Agamotto.
The Ancient One warns of Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), who has been contacting Dormammu (Benedict Cumberbatch) of the Dark Dimension, where time doesn’t exist.
Kaecilius then attacks the New York Sanctum, one of three Sanctums that protect Earth from inter-dimensional threats.
Strange steps in, and after the encounter he reveals to Mordo that the Ancient One has been drawing power from the Dark Dimension to keep herself alive, and this shatters his view of her.
The Ancient One is fatally wounded by Kaecilius, then he heads to the Hong Kong Sanctum.
Once Strange and Mordo arrive, they find a destroyed Sanctum and a dead Wong (Benedict Wong).
Strange uses the time stone to fix the Sanctum and bring Wong back, then enters the Dark Dimension to confront Dormammu.
He traps the both in a time loop, letting Dormammu repeatedly kill him in order to get him away from Earth.
He offers to break the loop if Dormammu leaves Earth forever and takes Kaecilius with him.
Eventually, Dormammu agrees.
Once Strange is back, Mordo confronts him for his careless choices with the fabric of time and departs from the ideals of sorcery.
Strange returns the stone and moves to the New York Sanctum with Wong to watch over.
Mid-credits scene shows Strange talking to Thor, who’s looking for his father.
Post-credits Mordo is shown stealing a sorcerer’s mystical energy, stating there’s too many sorcerers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Dir. James Gunn Budget: $200 M Box Office: $863.8 M
IMDb: 7.6 Tomatometer: 85% Audience Score: 87%
Fifteenth film, this film starts with Peter Quill, Gamora, Rocket, Drax, and Baby Groot protecting batteries for the Sovereign in exchange for safe return of Nebula, who was caught trying to steal said batteries.
Rocket manages to steal the batteries for himself, which gets a fleet of Sovereign drones sent after them.
They’re rescued at the last minute by Ego the Living Planet(Kurt Russel), who’s quickly revealed to be Quill’s real dad.
Ego invites Quill, Gamora, and Drax to his planet, while Groot and Rocket stay to watch over Nebula and repair their ship.
The trio become captives of mutinous Ravagers, who’ve locked Yondu away.
Nebula is able to talk her way out of her situation and sets out to kill Gamora over the abusive actions of their father.
While imprisoned Rocket and Yondu form an understanding of one another, and with assistance from Groot and Kraglin (Sean Gunn) they manage to escape.
We then learn Ego is an all-powerful Celestial, that hired Yondu to deliver Quill after birth, but he never delivered.
While Ego is teaching Quill how to harness his powers, Nebula tracks down Gamora.
They fight almost to the death, until they discover a cavern of bones and agree to set aside their differences, momentarily.
Ego drops bombs on Quill, telling him that there have been thousands of children before that were killed because they didn’t have the power Ego was hoping for.
He then says he planted the brain tumor that killed Quill’s mom, which sends him spiraling.
He meets up with Gamora, Nebula, Rocket, Groot, Yondu, Drax, and Mantis (Pom Klementieff), who initially warned Drax of Ego’s true intentions.
The group travel to the planet’s core, where Yondu reveals he knew what Ego was doing, and refused to deliver Quill and have him meet the same fate.
Using the batteries from earlier, Rocket makes a bomb and has Groot plant it.
With his newly discovered Celestial powers, Quill fights off Ego long enough for them to plant it and escape before the planet explodes.
Shortly after Ego’s death Quill loses his new powers and finds himself stuck in the vacuum of space. Yondo sacrifices himself to save him.
Nebula resolves to target her father going forward, instead of her sister that was delt the same circumstances.
During Yondu’s funeral, Gamora and Quill become an official couple.
First mid-credits scene shows Kraglin donning Yondu’s telekinetic arrow and fin.
Second one features the Sovereign giving rise to an artificial being named Adam.
Post-credits scene establishes Groot has grown into a teenager.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Dir. Jon Watts Budget: $175 M Box Office: $880.2 M
IMDb: 7.4 Tomatometer: 92% Audience Score: 87%
Sixteenth film, Spider-Man’s first solo entry into the MCU.
While it’s a great watch and still one of my personal favorites from the MCU, it doesn’t do much work for expanding the greater universe.
Characters introduced include Ned (Jacob Batalon), MJ (Zendaya), The Vulture (Michael Keaton), and a set-up for The Prowler (Donald Glover).
Tony Stark is shown to care for Parker, as he’s shown watching over Parker during the entire film, not even including the amount of tech Stark put into the Spider suit.
At the end of the film, due to his heroic actions Parker is offered a position in The Avengers.
He declines, and Stark is shown proposing to Pepper Potts.
Good film with great action and emotional scenes but lacks an impact on the over-arching story.
Thor: Ragnarök
Dir. Taika Waititi Budget: $180 M Box Office: $854 M
IMDb: 7.9 Tomatometer: 93% Audience Score: 87%
Seventeenth film, and subjectively what people consider to be the good Thor movie.
This film brings a certain campiness that was much appreciated by many audiences, while also establishing the last bit of plot needed for Infinity War.
Film starts with Thor defeating Surtur (Taika Waititi and Clancy Brown) and taking his crown to prevent Ragnarök.
A weakened Odin warns Thor and Loki that once he passes, their sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) will be free from her imprisonment.
The moment Odin passes Hela materializes before the two and destroys Mjolnir with ease.
They flee through the Bifrost, but she pursues and knocks them into space.
She returns to Asgard to resurrect her former army, as well as her giant wolf Fenris.
Thor crash lands on Sakaar, where he’s taken prisoner by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and forced to fight in a gladiator arena under the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum).
His opponent is Hulk, and we learn he’s been here as Hulk ever since the events of Ultron.
After the fight, we see Hulk has gained the mental capabilities of a toddler, and thus is able to maintain the smallest of conversation.
Thor escapes, and finds the jet Hulk flew in.
He brings Hulk to the ship and plays a recording of Natasha Romanoff, which turns him back into Bruce Banner.
After Loki suggests stealing a ship to get off planet, he, Thor, Banner, and Valkyrie free the other gladiators and start revolting.
Loki tries to betray his brother yet again, but this time Thor’s prepared for it, and leaves him behind with the rest of the gladiators.
Thor, Banner, and Valkyrie make it to Asgard to stop Hela.
Banner turns back into Hulk to fight Fenris in one of the funniest shots in the entire MCU.
Loki arrives with the gladiators, and everyone launches an assault against Hela and her army.
During the fight, Thor loses his right eye and has a vision of Odin, who tells him he never needed his hammer to harness his power, and that only Ragnarök can stop Hela.
He has Loki retrieve Surtur’s crown and place it in the Eternal Flame, starting the end of Asgard.
Loki complies, but not before stealing the Tesseract from the vault.
Everybody flees into a ship and fly into space, where they watch Surtur destroy the land, but Thor and his people learn Asgard is a people, not a place.
Mid-credits scene features the Asgardians being approached by a much larger ship.
Post-credits show the Grandmaster being overthrown by his former slaves.
Black Panther
Dir. Ryan Coogler Budget: $200 M Box Office: $1.348 B
IMDb: 7.3 Tomatometer: 96% Audience Score: 79%
Eighteenth film, film starts by establishing the world’s vibranium came from a meteorite.
We then follow the story of T’Challa taking the throne in place of his late father.
Wakanda is shown to be one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet, and characters such as Shuri (Letita Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), and Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan).
Once Killmonger is introduced, he sets out to take the throne from T’Challa, believing he is the rightful heir.
He seemingly kills T’Challa, until he’s brought to M’Baku and his tribe to be healed.
He goes back to fight Killmonger, and they both have upgraded suits that absorb and redistribute damage being delt.
The fight falls into the vibranium mines, where T’Challa stabs through Killmonger’s suit, and Killmonger accepts his fate with one of the most baller quotes from this franchise yet:
“Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.”
Avengers: Infinity War
Dir. Anthony and Joe Russo Budget: $360 M Box Office: $2.048 B
IMDb: 7.3 Tomatometer: 85% Audience Score: 91%
Nineteenth film, and the payoff for every film that came before it.
It starts off right after the events of Ragnarök, with Thanos boarding the Asgardians and wiping most of them out, and wiping the floor with Hulk, to obtain the Space Stone from Loki.
The previous films only happened because of the power these stones emanate, and the allure they have over beings across the universe.
The previous films have shown their power and where they are, this film follows Thanos as he collects every stone to wipe out half of life in the universe, thus saving the universe from overpopulation.
And by the end of the film, he accomplishes that goal!
The heroes combined efforts were not enough, and both the heroes and audiences are left stewing in the sense of failure and despair.
The post-credits scene shows Fury being turned to dust, but not before he’s able to activate an unknown pager.
My personal favorite from the franchise, and I would have been 100% satisfied if the series ended here.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Dir. Peyton Reed Budget: $160 M Box Office: $622.7 M
IMDb: 7.0 Tomatometer: 87% Audience Score: 80%
Twentieth film and set before the events of Infinity War.
While this film is fine and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, much of the plot feels inconsequential once you see the mid-credits scene.
Scott Lang is shown getting trapped in the Quantum Realm, where time moves much slower compared to us.
Captain Marvel
Dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck Budget: $150 M Box Office: $1.128 B
IMDb: 6.8 Tomatometer: 79% Audience Score: 45%
Twenty first film. Following the story of an amnesic Carol Danvers, who’s trying to stop shapeshifting Skrulls from taking over the galaxy, as well as regain her memory.
While there are certain opinions out there about this development, she’s established as one of the single strongest characters the MCU has seen.
These opinions, when based with merit, typically stem from the fact that she encountered much less personal turmoil than other heroes.
The worst things that are shown to have happened to Danvers was being repeatedly doubted and cast aside simply because she’s a woman, and she left behind people she had cared about, but no longer remembered.
While I can agree those struggles seem mundane compared to the experiences The Avengers have individually gone through, I believe comparing heroes in that regard is counter intuitive to one of the franchise’s core messages.
The basis of every one of these films is that the circumstances you’re delt in life don’t define you, it’s how you respond and rise against those circumstances that does.
And that’s exactly what she did, she had a certain hand delt against her, and she rose above it and miraculously became one of the strongest organisms to ever exist.
After successfully deterring the Skrull threat, Danvers leaves Fury to set up an initiative to recruit other superheroes.
The initiative is named after her call sign in the Air Force, “Avenger”.
One thing I can fully support being changed in this movie, however, is the cat being responsible for Fury’s scar.
While it is a payoff from when he said he got that scar from the last person he trusted, it feels like such an underwhelming answer to a question that fans have been wondering about since 2008.
But it works, as in the post-credits scene, Goose is shown regurgitating the Tesseract in Fury’s office, explaining how it got back to Earth.
Avengers: Endgame
Dir. Anthony and Joe Russo Budget: $375 M Box Office: $2.798 B
IMDb: 8.4 Tomatometer: 94% Audience Score: 90%
Twenty-second entry, and the actual culmination of the entire franchise to this point.
Featuring over 160 characters, this film marks the end of the Infinity Saga.
While there’s technically one more film in the saga, Endgame changes the MCU forever.
Starts with payoff for both the ending of Infinity War and Captain Marvel and shows the hard ramifications of half the universes’ population being gone for five years.
Scott Lang escapes the Quantum Realm, and due to the time distortion, it was only five hours to him.
He takes this information to The Avengers, who then go to Stark to utilize the Quantum Realm for time travel.
He creates a successful concept, and with the help of Smart Hulk they build a working time machine.
They establish changing the past does not change the present, rather creates a new timeline for the new reality.
The group segments, and travels to different points in their collective pasts when they were near a stone.
Rogers, Lang, Banner, and Stark go to 2012 during the attack on New York, where their interference allows this Loki to escape with the Tesseract.
Rogers and Stark travel further back in time to Camp Lehigh in 1970, where Stark gets the Tesseract and closure from his father.
Rogers steals Pym Particles from Pym’s lab, as well as spots Peggy Carter.
Rocket and Thor go to 2013 Asgard, where Rocket siphons the Aether from Jane Foster, and Thor gets closer from his mother, as well as takes this reality’s Mjolnir.
Barton, Romanoff, Nebula, and Rhodes go to 2014, where the group splits up.
Nebula and Rhodes go to steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill gets there. Barton and Romanoff travel to the distant planet Vormir.
They’re unaware of what’s required to obtain the stone, and Romanoff is the one to make the sacrifice.
Nebula’s shown to not be able to make it home, as she becomes incapacitated when her cybernetics link to the same network 2014 Nebula is operating on, and accidently shows 2014 Thanos that his plan is successful.
He sends his Nebula in her place, and The Avengers regroup in the present.
Hulk is able to reverse the snap without causing permanent damage to himself, but just as people are coming back Nebula opens the time machine and brings Thanos through.
At this moment, Steven Strange opens several portals to bring in assistance: The Avengers, Guardians, Ravagers, Wakandans, Asgardians, and additional sorcerers.
During the ensuing brawl, Carol Danvers flies in, destroys Thanos’ warship, and begins fighting him for the gauntlet until he knocks her aside.
During the encounter however, Stark steals the stones and snaps away Thanos and his army at the cost of his life.
His funeral features every significant character that’s interacted with Stark, including Harley Keener from Iron Man 3.
Thor leaves to join the Guardians and has Valkyrie lead New Asgard. Rogers is tasked with returning the stones back to where they belong, then come back.
He delivered the stones but chose to live out his days alongside the love that he lost, Peggy Carter. An old Rogers is shown passing his shield, and the proverbial torch, to Sam Wilson.
This film feels so dense, every scene is packed with either payoff from a previous film, or establishing new plot threads for moving forward.
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Dir. Jon Watts Budget: $160 M Box Office: $1.132 B
IMDb: 7.4 Tomatometer: 90% Audience Score: 95%
The twenty-third film and explores the ramifications of the snapped being brought back unaged, and the fallout of Tony Stark’s death.
Peter Parker encounters Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), who states he’s here from another dimension to eliminate Elementals.
Through the course of the film, we see Beck’s a fraud, who’s using holographs to simulate both the Elementals and his powers.
This is in effort to obtain Stark’s glasses from Parker, which are connected to mass databases and an orbital drone.
Once Parker defeats Beck, MJ and he became an official couple.
Mid-credits scene features J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) broadcasts Spider-Man’s secret identity to the world.
