Editor's Note: This story comes from CableTV.com.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is perhaps a little controversial these days. It’s come a long way since it began in 2008, spanning dozens of movies and TV shows and even incorporating elements from movies before its time.
How’s a fan supposed to catch up?
Enter CableTV.com. We’re here to keep things in order with this complete overview of the MCU. Excelsior!
Where to watch the MCU
If you’re a Marvel fan, the main streaming service you need is Disney+. Most MCU titles are available on this list.
Sony still owns the film rights to Spider-Man, so those movies are split awkwardly between Disney+ and a few other services for the time being.
How to watch the MCU in order
Almost every item on this list is available for streaming on Disney+.
The only exceptions are the Spider-Man movies, which are co-owned by Sony thanks to deals Marvel made prior to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s creation. Sometimes you’ll find them on Disney+, but sometimes you’ll find them on another service like Fubo, STARZ or Netflix.
For the purposes of this list, we’re recommending the titles in release order. We’re also including Marvel One-Shots, which are short films meant to fill in some gaps (usually in a comedic way) between movies. These aren’t required viewing, per se, but they’re worth a look if you’re a completionist.
Phase One
The Marvel Cinematic Universe started in May 2008 with “Iron Man.” Phase One culminated in “The Avengers,” the first movie to see the MCU’s main cast all starring and interacting in one movie.
This was totally groundbreaking in 2012 — a corporate synergy not seen since the days of “House of Mouse” on Toon Disney.
This is also the first phase of what is now called “The Infinity Saga,” although it wasn’t called that at the time.
- “Iron Man”
- “The Incredible Hulk”
- “Iron Man 2”
- “Thor
- One-Shot: “The Consultant”
- “Captain America: The First Avenger”
- One-Shot: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer”
- “The Avengers”
- One-Shot: “Item 47”
Phase Two
Phase Two handles the aftermath of “The Avengers.” Once the core heroes were established, the movies explore the characters a bit further and start setting the scene for Thanos to make an entrance in Phase Three.
- “Iron Man 3”
- One-Shot: “Agent Carter”
- “Thor: The Dark World”
- One-Shot: “All Hail the King”
- “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”
- “Avengers: Age of Ultron”
- “Ant-Man”
Phase Three
Phase Three covers the Infinity Saga’s climax. The years of teasing Thanos and the Infinity Stones finally pay off in “Avengers: Infinity War.” The impact of that movie and its direct sequel, “Endgame,” forever changes most of the existing MCU characters’ stories.
- “Captain America: Civil War”
- One-Shot: “Team Thor Part 1”
- “Doctor Strange”
- One-Shot: “Team Thor Part 2”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”
- “Spider-Man: Homecoming”
- “Thor: Ragnarok”
- One-Shot: “Team Darryl”
- “Black Panther”
- “Avengers: Infinity War”
- “Ant-Man and the Wasp”
- “Captain Marvel”
- “Avengers: Endgame”
- “Spider-Man: Far From Home”
Phase Four
Phase Four begins the “Multiverse Saga” and is the most bloated of the existing MCU phases, but don’t let that intimidate you. Unlike previous phases, the titles on this list aren’t that closely connected.
There are some common threads; for example, “WandaVision,” “Loki” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” all deal with time travel-y multiverse stuff. However, a lot of these titles were written and filmed simultaneously, so they didn’t really have time to learn from and reference each other.
You can pretty much watch Phase Four of the MCU in any order.
The best watch strategy here, if you haven’t been following along, is to focus only on the titles that interest you. If you like the Scarlet Witch, watch “WandaVision.” If you like Loki, watch “Loki.” If you’re a comics fan (like this writer), you’d probably be pretty happy with “Ms. Marvel,” “Hawkeye” and “Moon-Girl and Devil Dinosaur.”
But if you want to be a total completionist? Well, good luck.
- “WandaVision”
- “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”
- “Loki”
- “Black Widow”
- “What If…?”
- “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”
- “Eternals”
- “Hawkeye”
- “Spider-Man: No Way Home”*
- “Moon Knight”
- “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”
- “Ms. Marvel”
- “Thor: Love and Thunder”
- “I Am Groot”
- “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”
- “Werewolf by Night”
- “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
- “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special”
- “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur”**
- *Available on VOD
- **Hey, this is technically multiverse canon, probably!
Phase Five
Phase Five is ongoing, so we don’t know exactly how it will continue the Multiverse story, or even if these releases are 100% correct.
- “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
- “Secret Invasion”
- “Loki Season 2”
- “The Marvels”
- “What If…? season 2”
- “Echo”
- “Deadpool & Wolverine”
- “X-Men ‘97”
- “Ironheart”
- “Captain America: Brave New World”
- “Agatha: Coven of Chaos”
- “Daredevil: Born Again”
- “Thunderbolts”
- “Blade”
MCU-adjacent shows and movies
The problem with keeping a single, standard canon across dozens of shows and movies is that sometimes, your plans change. Maybe you want to incorporate elements from movies you didn’t personally make, and sometimes you declare something canon only to walk back on it a few years later.
Such is the fate of many Marvel properties prior to the creation of Disney+. These titles aren’t necessarily required to understand the full MCU, but were canon at one point or another and are really good (mostly, if you ignore “Inhumans”).
For the sake of this writer’s sanity and time, we’re limiting this list to titles that have actually, materially crossed over with the MCU. But if Kevin Feige wants to go ahead and reference the “Runaways” TV show, we’re here for it.
The Spider-Verse
With the popularity of the “Spider-Verse” comics and movies, Marvel Studios and Sony are finally coming around to reluctantly acknowledging each other’s movies.
The most obvious example of this is “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” an MCU movie that brought in characters and actors from both Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man movies, which are both fully owned by Sony. (In contrast, Sony and Disney share the Tom Holland movies).
- “Spider-Man”
- “Spider-Man 2”
- “Spider-Man 3”
- “The Amazing Spider-Man”
- “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
- “Spider-Man: Homecoming”
- “Venom”
- “Into the Spider-Verse”**
- “Spider-Man: Far From Home”
- “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”**
- “Spider-Man: No Way Home”***
- “Across the Spider-Verse”*
- *streaming on Netflix
- **streaming on Fubo
- ***available on VOD
The S.H.I.E.L.D.-verse
This one really hurts. When ABC first aired “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” in 2013, it was supposed to be a canon extension of the story from “The Avengers.” It starred Clark Gregg, whose character Phil Coulson was extremely important throughout Phase One of the MCU, and who even came back for the flashback-movie “Captain Marvel” in Phase Three.
However, despite the series running for seven years, Marvel axed it in 2020 and unofficially declared its events non-canon.
Maybe this is because the show dealt with time travel before the rest of the MCU was ready for it — although honestly, the MCU has yet to stick to its own time travel rules, so S.H.I.E.LD. might as well be canon, as far as we’re concerned. Also, it’s really good and way under-appreciated by the general public.
S.H.I.E.L.D. saw two spinoffs of its own. The first was “Agent Carter,” which continued Peggy Carter’s story after the events of “Captain America: The First Avenger,” and even crossed over with “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” in its later seasons.
The second was “Inhumans,” which was hypothetically supposed to continue the inhuman storylines from “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Unfortunately, it didn’t do that at all, and it was really bad on top of that. Maybe that part of the MCU is better off forgotten.
- “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
- “Agent Carter”*
- “Inhumans”
*You should watch “Agent Carter” any point before the final season of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” Trust us!
The Defenders Saga, aka the Netflix shows
The Netflix Marvel shows are floating in a very murky purgatory right now. Like “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” they were produced before Disney+ and were originally made to be MCU canon. Unfortunately, the movies refused to acknowledge any of the TV shows, even though they supposedly shared a universe.
This saga is now technically a “legacy” story, although you see certain characters pop up in the MCU at times; both Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin have appeared in a few of the MCU’s recent projects, and there’s a new Daredevil show, “Born Again,” coming down the line.
Unfortunately for die-hard fans, though, none of these recent projects recognize the Defenders Saga as canon, and we’ve yet to see Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or even Foggy Nelson again. We miss them dearly.
- “Daredevil”
- “Jessica Jones”
- “Luke Cage”
- “Iron Fist”
- “The Defenders”
- “Punisher”
- “Spider-Man: No Way Home”*
- “Hawkeye”*
- “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”*
- “Echo”*
*MCU canon, cameos only
Fox’s X-Men movies
For years, 20th Century Fox owned the rights to all of Marvel’s mutant characters (aka The X-Men), and Marvel Studios handled almost everything else. The Fox X-Men movies actually predate the existence of the MCU, and a lot of people credit “X-Men” (2000) as the start of the modern superhero craze.
Since they were made by different studios, the X-Men movies existed in a different cinematic universe from the MCU. But now Disney that owns both Marvel Studios and Fox, they’re ready to cross the streams.
It’s unclear how exactly the two multiverses will merge, but it seems like it’s all going down in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
- “X-Men”
- “X2”
- “X-Men: The Last Stand”
- “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”
- “X-Men: First Class”
- “The Wolverine”
- “X-Men: Days of Future Past”
- “X-Men: Apocalypse”
- “Deadpool”
- “Logan”
- “Deadpool 2”
- “Dark Phoenix”
- “The New Mutants”
- “WandaVision”*
- “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness”*
- “Deadpool & Wolverine”
*MCU canon with Fox cameos
What to watch before ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
As you might expect, the best movies to watch before “Deadpool & Wolverine” are the ones that feature Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).
On Wolverine’s side, you’re going to want to watch four of the X-Men films and the three standalone Wolverine films.
Deadpool’s filmography is more straightforward — he’s got two standalone films.
They were also both in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” but we don’t talk about that.
- “X-Men”
- “X2”
- “X-Men: The Last Stand”
- “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”
- “The Wolverine”
- “X-Men: Days of Future Past”
- “Deadpool”
- “Logan”
- “Deadpool 2”
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