Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Poll: What Is Your Favorite Marvel MCU Movie (So Far)?

Over the past decade, Marvel has already cranked out 18 movies as part of its Cinematic Universe project and shows no sign of slowing down. As Black Panther gets his first solo movie, let’s take a moment to assess which of the MCU films is the best so far.

The poll below is limited only to movies that are officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon. That means the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and all the Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield are excluded, along with a few others that may be based on Marvel comic book properties but don’t fold into this continuity. I have also decided to leave out the various MCU television series (‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, ‘Daredevil’, etc.), but I may use those in another poll down the line.

You only get one vote in this poll. This isn’t a survey of all your favorites. Please pick the #1 top title, in your opinion.

What Is Your Favorite Marvel MCU Movie (So Far)?

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I still need to catch up with a few of these movies. I didn’t see ‘Ragnarok’ in the theater and likely won’t get to ‘Black Panther’ either, but have already preordered Blu-rays for both. Copies of ‘Civil War’ and ‘Homecoming’ are currently sitting on my shelf while I try to find time to watch them.

Of those I’ve seen, ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ has been the high water mark for this franchise, as far as I’m concerned.

Do you agree? What’s your favorite?

40 comments

  1. T.J. Kats

    Voted Winter Soldier but have not seen Black Panther yet so it’s possible that will pass it once I see it this weekend.

  2. Alex

    I voted for Winter Soldier, but I just want to throw out there that I think The Incredible Hulk is severely underrated. For some reason, it always seems to get ranked down there with Thor: Dark World, and I think it deserves far better than that.

  3. Warner

    I know this question focuses on the Marvel movies, but honestly I think the Netflix Marvel series are much better then the movies. The first, and I think only season so far, of Luke Cage is pretty awesome!

  4. So…I’m the one who voted for ‘Iron Man 3’.

    I know it got a lot of crap from fans about how it handled The Mandarin, but I find it to be the most emotionally substantial of all the MCU movies. It is one of the Shane-Blackiest Shane Black movies, which is of course set during Christmas.

    It deals with the struggles Tony Stark is dealing with after the events of The Avengers, and adds a ton of perspective to understand his stance during Civil War. Instead of being about Iron Man vs his newest enemy, it really is Iron Man vs Tony Stark.

    • Vidfreek

      I really need to rewatch this, I’ve seen all of them a few times each except for this one, only watched it once and never really returned to it. Bought the 3D bluray and never even put it in the player (saw the movie in the theater). I remember it being funny (who doesnt like Shane Black movies?) but I just didnt care that much, maybe now it will be even better now that the later movies have come after it.

      • I feel it really works best in the context of the other movies. I actually rewatched several of them backwards and really enjoyed it. I went Civil War (2016), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Winter Solder (2014), Iron Man 3 (2013), Captain America: First Avenger (2011), Iron Man 2 (2010), and then Iron Man (2008).

        • Timcharger

          “I actually rewatched several of them backwards and really enjoyed it.”

          If we have to resort to watching them in reverse sequence to better appreciate IM3, isn’t that saying something? And also if you need surrounding films to bolster said film?

    • Timcharger

      Yes, IM3 has the plotline of Iron Man vs Tony Stark. Which results in…

      Spoiler warning? Really? Do we need to, this late? Anyway…

      …all the Iron Man suits being blown up. Self-destructed. And what happens next? Complete ignorance and bullsh*t. The next appearance in the MCU is that Iron Man will don his suit for Robert Redford’s neice’s birthday party. This would be like Hamlet contemplating life to that skull, and then next we see Hamlet now just uses that skull as a cookie jar. F-U IM3!

      • I know what you mean about the jarring position you are left in at the end of Iron Man 3, but I think it perfectly sets up Tony’s mental state for Civil War. It also gets rid of all the suit clutter from 2.

        • Timcharger

          So is that a downgrade? The existential identity questions of Tony Stark vs Iron Man, is really about decluttering the Malibu cliffside mansion. Suit clutter from IM2? There was a few in 2, but I think it was IM3 that introduced 30 suits.

  5. Movie Watcher

    No Deadpool? Isn’t it part of the MCU? I haven’t seen a damned one of the other ones other than Iron Man, which I thought was just so so and Captain America which I turned off 30 minutes into it because I thought it was such a crappy movie.

  6. photogdave

    I voted Iron Man. For me it was a game changer — the first super hero movie to nail the spirit of the comic, realistically update it, and make it a thoroughly enjoyable watch. Only X-Men 2 accomplished the same feat in my book.
    I did enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy but I didn’t find it quite as clever as everyone else seems to think and Vol.2 is not as clever as it thinks it is.
    Ant-Man was pretty fun. I didn’t find the Captain America movies very memorable and the first Thor was just okay.
    Haven’t seen the rest and have no real interest. Kind of burnt out on super hero movies.

  7. Vidfreek

    Thor Ragnarok for me, that was an absolute blast in the theater, love the over the top nature of it all, space fantasy at its best….even more so than Guardians IMO, but its so damn close with a lot of these, I’m a big Marvel movie fan and really enjoy them all, but this, Guardians and Winter Soldier are my tops

  8. Opinionhaver

    I had to vote The Avengers because it was the culmination of an undertaking in cinema that was the first of its kind, and it could have easily collapsed under the weight of expectations or been a disaster for a variety of reasons, but for a lifelong fan of these characters it was SO SATISFYING to see justice done to them. It’s rare for a film to have both a genuinely funny sense of humor and real dramatic weight (such as it is regarding costumed heroes), but Whedon wrote such a film. Watch the scene with Loki and Black Widow and it’s pretty clear the only reason Marvel Studios doesn’t win statues is the silly subject matter.

    And speaking of that, The Winter Soldier is very correctly #1 on this poll currently. That is a legit movie that is better than a healthy percentage of Best Picture nominees in any given year. But since it’s about Captain America it didn’t get its due.

  9. Chris B

    I liked Winter Soldier the best, followed by Civil War. not really a superhero movie fan (most of the time I just want them to be over), but Winter Soldier was a great action-thriller and superbly entertaining film….Marvel or otherwise.

  10. Guy

    I genuinely enjoy most of them with varying degrees of nits to pick here and there. The remarkable thing to me is that they’re all watchable at the very least. At the MCU’s worst, it’s mediocre. Compare that to other long franchises I’m familiar with and that’s not the case. They haven’t made a Live and Let Die or Die Another Day yet.

    I abstained from voting because a single favorite is hard to pick. For me, it’s easier to pick out the bottom entries: The Incredible Hulk and the first Thor are easily the most mediocre. They’re mixed bags with plenty of good stuff, but get dragged down by some terribly misguided decisions and really uninspired action. Guardians Vol. 2 is probably in that class as well (for different reasons), but I’ve only seen it once and I don’t like to definitively assess any movie with only one viewing.

  11. Csm101

    The Avengers is probably my favorite of the Marvel movies. The anticipation and payoff were equally satisfying. Winter Soldier would probably come in as second.

  12. Wesley

    They’ve made some mediocre films and some just downright awful (I’m looking at you Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World). The best of the lot is the first Guardians. Frankly, they are terrible at sequels. The first of the franchise is usually solid and the sequels barely watchable at times. With Winter Soldier a solid exception.

  13. Deaditelord

    This one was a hard choice because my favorite Marvel movies are not part of the MCU. Out of this list, I would pick Doctor Strange, followed closely by Thor: Ragnarok and The Incredible Hulk.

  14. Timcharger

    Winter Soldier gets so much love, but the whole countdown timing, the villains need to synchronize the shooting (from 500 miles away) SPECIFIC individuals with 100,000 guns all aiming in unison from a flying boat. No, 3 flying boats, we need to countdown 3 sets of boat guns because… just because. I guess the projectile physics of 100,000 (no 300,000) synchronized bullets seems to hurt my brain. Yes, it’s superhero fiction, but this is supposed to be a more grounded, 70s style conspiracy thriller.

      • Timcharger

        Hydra certainly had a flair for the dramatic. The Third Reich committed genocide. But Hydra demanded SYNCHRONIZED genocide. Evil schemes just aren’t worthwhile unless they get some major style points. Killing 300,000 over hours/days just isn’t worth getting out of bed for.

  15. William Henley

    This one was a hard vote, as I had to mix how well the movie was made, how good the story was, and all of that with how fun the movie was. While I feel like the Captain America movies were the best made, and while Iron Man may have been the most fun I had in a superhero movie, I felt that the best combination of characters, story, fun, comedy, and just an overall well-made movie falls on the Guardian of the Galaxy movies, so I voted the first one as my favorite. I have no issues with anyone choosing one of the other movies, and if I had of set my criteria differently, I could have easily voted for one of the others, but in the end, I stand by my decision.

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