(SPOT.ph) If Marvel Studios' recent 15-title of their Phase Five and Six line-up has got you in the mood to binge-watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe all over again, then you'd be in the right company. However, the first question everyone asks before such an undertaking is: where do we start?
Well, we may not be the Timekeepers from Loki (we're real people, we promise) nor the Watcher from What If...? but we do think that, after nearly 15 years with this franchise, we've come up with the best viewing order for binge-watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Whether you're the type to kick off the MCU binge with Iron Man or Captain America: The First Avenger, you'll want to hear us out!
For the following lists, we've only covered up until the end of Phase Three, plus Black Widow in a couple of instances, as Phase Four hasn't concluded yet. Also, we're sticking to Marvel Studios properties only, so we're not opening that whole can of multiverse worms made by the Spider-Man universes, the Netflix series, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Not today, Marvel.
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Presenting the best Marvel Cinematic Universe watch orders:
In Order of Release
Obviously, you can go for the basic order in which the films themselves were dropped in cinemas. You'd start off with the films of the OG Avengers in Phase One; Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, then hit the first "season finale" with The Avengers.
Following that up with Phase Two, you'll get sequels Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, then the ragtag newcomers Guardians of the Galaxy, followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron, then Ant-Man.
Phase Three ups the ante, as that's when Marvel started to release three films a year. You'd start with Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange from 2016, then Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok from 2017, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ant-Man and the Wasp from 2018, and finally Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home from the last year of the pre-pandemic era.
The pros: It's an easy watch order to keep track of, as you can just reference Wikipedia for it.
The cons: The in-universe chronology of events doesn't always match up with the release schedule, which is why you get confusing plot points like why Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) appears at the end of The Incredible Hulk recruiting for the Avengers, when Iron Man 2 details that he turned down the offer, and why does Ant-Man not appear in Avengers: Infinity War? Questions only nerds ask, sure, but it's important to consider, given the interconnectivity of the universe.
Chronological Order
Watching the films in the chronological order that the events happen in-universe is another way to watch these films. This side of the fandom features people who start their MCU binge with Captain America: The First Avenger, given that it takes place in World War II. This is followed up by the Phase Three film Captain Marvel, which takes place in the 1990s. Only then, do you get to the first MCU film Iron Man, which takes place sometime in 2008-2009.
After that, you'll follow the release order for a bit, but with a few key differences. Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor can be interchangeably watched since they all take place within the same week (a plot point revisited in What If...? episode three, for all the nerds keeping check). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 would immediately follow the first film in the viewing order, because both Guardians films only take place a few months apart, despite being released years apart.
Phase Three is where it gets interesting because the order would be: Captain America: Civil War, Black Widow from Phase Four, Black Panther, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, then Ant-Man and the Wasp, all before Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. Pretty much nothing remained similar.
The pros: Aside from giving us an entertaining Guardians double-feature, the chronological viewing order finds more of its strength in Phase Three, as Black Widow, Black Panther, and Homecoming are able to let you truly see the consequences of Civil War before the storyline is quickly swept under the rug in Infinity War.
The cons: Making Captain America: The First Avenger the first film in the MCU binge is a bit odd, due to it banking a bit on your knowledge of S.H.I.E.L.D. and vague outer space entities. The same could be said for placing Captain Marvel right next after it as the second film, especially since you'll have to wait for about 20 movies to see her character's pay off in Endgame.
The Spot-Approved, Best Watch Order
Our—*ahem*—definitive MCU watch order combines the release and chronological viewing orders to get the best of both worlds.
You start off with Iron Man, because let's face it, Endgame culminates with Stark's storyline more than anyone else's. You follow Stark's story into Iron Man 2 and meet the larger world of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is when you follow it up with The Incredible Hulk.
Your Phase One solo superhero journey then comes to a close with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, because the two are a perfect double-feature! Thor sets up the villain of The Avengers, while The First Avenger sets up the main plot device (the Tesseract) of that movie. Both movies also have prominent love stories and end with the hero staring off into the distance over the love that they lost! To quote Star Wars creator George Lucas, "it's like poetry, it rhymes."
After The Avengers, you check in to see how your heroes are doing in their sequels Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, before heading off into uncharted space with a Guardians of the Galaxy double-feature, as per the timeline. Next, you finish off Phase Two with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.
The best viewing order for Phase Three would be the chronological order, for the reasons mentioned above, but you place Captain Marvel in between your viewings of Infinity War and Endgame. Why? Well, firstly, to let the cliffhanger of Infinity War sit with you for a bit longer. Secondly, it allows the payoff of her character to happen much quicker than setting her at the start of the binge.
That's really what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all about; teases and payoff for actually sticking through their 100 hours of content. Why else would we sit through all these hours of adjacent storylines that occasionally intertwine within a big summer, blockbuster?
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