Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Espionage, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and several of the best fight scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe make this a classic. What puts Winter Soldier above the rest is its rewatch ability. After 11 years, Captain America’s coming out party is still a classic that commands attention whenever it’s on. And it doesn’t hurt that it features Mr. Marvel and GI favorite Chris Evans as Cap and also-favorite Sebastian Stan as the titular Winter Soldier.
Black Panther (2018)
The best origin story to ever come out of the MCU belongs to T’Challa and the Wakandans. A movie showcasing technologically advanced Black folks doing awesome things will always be top notch in our book. Add in perfectly paced action, good humor and a gorgeous cast and you have a strong contender for best MCU movie ever.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
You knew this was going to be on this list. As the crowning glory for the Infinity Saga, Endgame had everything we wanted: Plot threads wrapped up, callbacks to the earlier films, every hero that we loved in some form and an ending fight scene that brought joy, laughter and tears all at once. And ending Steve Rogers’ and Tony Stark’s stories were the icing on the cake. We’ll even forgive the Fat Thor jokes slightly for the surrounding material.
Thor: Ragnarök (2017)
Solo Thor films are hit and miss, but this one was a hit all the way through. We’ve loved Chris Hemsworth since the original Avengers (forgive us, we saw Thor’s first solo outing later) and we loved the way he brought us into Thor’s world. Throw in the excellent humor, fun cast and infinitely quotable lines (“We should do ‘Get Help.'” “We’re not doing ‘Get Help.'”), and you have a great solo outing for the lovable Mjolnir-swinging meathead. And any movie where Tom Hiddleston’s Loki features, we love it instantly.
The Avengers (2012)
The first outing for the Big 6 is the best of the bunch; yes, that includes a universe where Avengers: Infinity War exists. The original Avengers has so much good in it: An excellent scene-stealing villain in Loki, the surprise reveal of Thanos at the end, group dynamics that make sense, great pacing and secondary characters that we care about and hilarious banter. It’s still watchable after 13 years, and it set the stage for a lot of what we now know about the MCU. What a fantastic ensemble movie.
