What is the best and worst Marvel film of all time? Well, I’m sure we all have our opinions on that subject, but I wanted to know what the consensus was. To figure that out I gathered data from three major websites for rating movies and calculated the results. I gathered the average user ratings from IMDB, Letterboxd, and Rotten Tomatoes, along with the critics rating from the latter. I used those values to create an average score (a percentage) and ranked the movies. The films are ranked first by their average score and then by release date (newest to oldest). Average scores for this list are not weighted based on number of reviews, and the formula is modified in the case of missing ratings (generally critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes). While this list will include my own personal thoughts and opinions on each entry along with sections highly plagiarized from Wikipedia, the ranking is based entirely on the average score.
Before I did that, I had another question though: what movies? For this list I gathered all the live action feature length films using Marvel properties as the protagonists or antagonist (legally or not, this is important for one entry). This is not the MCU only or only theatrical releases. If you notice any movie missing, please let us know and we will update the list.
The list is up to date as of Thor: Love and Thunder as I did not want to include any films not readily available to a large audience (on Disney+ for at least a month). With that in mind, supplemental addendums may be published listing where future releases fall in this list. Edit: I’ve been writing this piece for so long that I’ve added in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as an addendum, and by the time this is published Ant-Man and Wasp Quantumania will have been on Disney for a month. But I think I’m done with Wakanda Forever.
80 – Captain America (1990) – 24% – This is a movie directed by the recently deceased B-movie legend Albert Pyun and starring Matt Salinger (the son of famous writer J.D.). Co-Starring in this film are Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty, and Darren McGavin. The film tells the story of Captain America fighting the Red Skull (Scott Paulin) in WWII, getting frozen, getting unfrozen in 1992 by a team of researchers, and then having to rescue the President of the United States from the Red Skull. While the movie is infamously bad (being the lowest entry of this list should tell you everything you need to know), the opening minutes of the film featuring the origin of the Red Skull are well done and worth watching at a minimum.
79 – Fantastic Four (2015) – 25% – This somewhat recent and (as of the writing of this article) last Fantastic Four movie is generally hated by most audiences for the most fiendish of traits: being boring. With a competent cast of actors (Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Toby Kebbell) it seemed to have an honest shot of being decent when initial announcements were made about the film, but then the fandom heard of Victor Von Doom’s name change and then there was the notorious behind-the-scenes drama which seems to have ended the career of its director, Josh Trank. It won three Razzies that year (beaten by Fifty Shades of Grey and Jupiter Ascending in several categories to prevent a clean sweep). Does this movie deserve to be the second worst film on this list? I personally don’t think so, even though I will concede it isn’t a good or even mediocre film.
78 – Man-Thing (2005) – 26% – In 2019 there was an united outcry on the internet. This was due to the third episode in the generally considered less-than-stellar final season of Game of Thrones. What was this outcry over? It was over the episode being too dark. Apparently, none of the people watching that night had ever seen Man-Thing. This was a Sci Fi Channel produced film directed by Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity) and starred Rachael Taylor (who would go one to be Trish Walker in the Netflix series Jessica Jones). After the success of other comic book property films, there was a push to release this film theatrically, but according to an unsourced comment on the Wikipedia page for this film, “the film was so bad that the test audience walked out before it was finished.” At the time it was released on DVD, I was working on Blockbuster and very excited when I saw this as an upcoming release. I do remember taking it home to watch and being almost immediately let down by how dark and dingy the film looked. It was a R-Rated horror film, and while there is gore and violence in the film, I just remember having an impossible time making out what was happening during any nighttime sequence.
77 – Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998) – 30% – This made-for-TV movie was written by David S. Goyer (Dark City, the Blade Trilogy, Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, and the recent Hellraiser reboot), directed by Rod Hardy (director of some episodes of X-Files, Burn Notice, and Battlestar Galactica), and starring David Hasselhoff and Lisa Rinna (one of those dumb Real Housewife shows). For a TV movie, this tried to have all of the geek cred it could (probably thanks to Goyer). It featured Nick Fury (of course), Valentine De Fontaine, Dum Dum Dugan, Arnim Zola, Clay Quartermain, Viper, Baron Von Strucker, LMDs and the Helicarrier. But even with all the references in the world, it couldn’t make up for the campy acting, lack of budget, and generally boring visuals. This movie is relatively easy to find on YouTube for free. If you’re a fan of bad films, this might be a fun one for you… but probably not.
76 – Elektra (2005) – 30% – Hot off the heels of the less than financial success of 2003 Daredevil movie (in which the character dies) Fox decided to make an Elektra film with Jennifer Garner reprising the titular role. Also starring in this movie are Kenuichio Harada (who would go one to play the Silver Samurai in The Wolverine), Terence Stamp (General Zod from Superman II), and Cary Tagawa (Big Trouble in Little China, License to Kill, & Mortal Kombat). Written by Zak Penn (Men in Black, X2, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers, but also X-Men: The Last Stand, Ready Player One, and Free Guy) and directed by Rob Bowman (multiple episodes of Star Trek: TNG and X-Files along with the X-Files movie and the criminally underrated Reign of Fire), this movie had the potential to not be bad. But it was (and still is). To sum up what may be the largest fault of Elektra, here is a quote from Roger Ebert’s review of the movie: “The movie’s fight scenes suffer from another condition, attention deficit disorder. None of their shots are more than a few seconds long, saving the actors from doing much in the way of stunts and the director from having to worry overmuch about choreography.”
75 – Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) – 33% – Another sequel and another horrible film… This 2011 sequel to the underwhelming but apparently profitable 2007 Ghost Rider is bad. If the combustible gonorrhoeic urination of the titular character in the trailer actually made you interested in viewing this film (slightly guilty) then you would’ve been on board for a cacophony of visuals that would’ve made an ADHD child question his prognosis. This film was written by Scott Gimple (executive producer of the Walking Dead for multiple seasons), Seth Hoffman (co-executive producer of the Walking Dead for multiple seasons), and David S. Goyer (we already know about him). This film starred Nicolas Cage reprising his role from the original film, but also featured the truly talented Ciarán Hinds (Road to Perdition, There Will Be Blood, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Christopher Lambert (Highlander), and Idris Elba (the guy who should be the next Bond). This film was directed by Neveldine/Taylor who are best known for their violent, offensive, sophomoric, and fun Crank films. This film should’ve been nauseating and exciting, but it was just boring and belligerent to the senses.
74 – The Fantastic Four (1994) – 33% – I clearly remember as a young man seeing the trailer for this movie. I think it was on the VHS for White Fang or something along those lines. Thirteen-year-old me was more excited than I had any right to be. Jump forward several years to college and the start of the miraculous website Ebay, and I was finally about to score a DVD of this film and watch it. Oh boy, was this not worth the wait. This was cheaply made and because this movie was never actually released, the print in circulation was a copy from a worn-out VHS tape which was digitized to an early and low-res video format and then burned to a DVD from an early home DVD burner. There is still no optimal way to watch this film. To get the entire backstory on why this is the only way to watch this film, you should check out the documentary Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four. With a cast of no-name (but working, and still working) actors, this is a B film if there ever was a B film. But, and I think this is important, there is a lot of heart and passion in the film from everyone involved, and if you can look past the meager budget and cardboard sets and early CGI that makes the Lawmower Man look like Jurassic Park, this is far from a completely irredeemable film. I’m not going to say it is good, but I also won’t say it is the worst thing I have ever seen. You can easily find this film on YouTube if you’d like to watch it for yourself.
73 – Howard the Duck (1986) – 35% – In May of 1999 there were countless morose fanboys my age and older upset over the horrific tragedy that is Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. But maybe there were signs that we should’ve known that the original Star Wars trilogy were serendipitous flukes. The first piece of demonstrative evidence was the film Howard the Duck produced by George Lucas hot off the heels of The Return of the Jedi (what many may consider to also be a sign). The film was directed by Willard Huyck (director of the underrated Messiah of Evil and co-writer of Temple of Doom and American Graffiti) and was written by Huyck and Gloria Katz (the other writer of Temple of Doom and American Graffiti). The film stars Lea Thompson (Back to the Future, Red Dawn, and Some Kind of Wonderful), Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Beetlejuice, Amadeus, Who’s Harry Crumb), and Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Jacob’s Ladder, The Shawshank Redemption, Mystic River, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Shawshank Redemption). While some, myself included, will offer some defense of this film due to some fun special effects and an over-top-performance by Jeffrey Jones (don’t think about his criminal record, just enjoy the movie), most who watch this consider it to be one of the worst films of all time due to an unlikable main duck, an inconsistent tone, and some of the worst fowl related puns ever put to film.
72 – Generation X (1996) – 36% – Directed by Jack shoulder (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies) and written by Eric Blakeney (Moonlighting… that was where Bruce Willis got his start, kids) this made-for-TV film had fans of the then fairly new comic book series Generation X very excited. The film had Emma Frost, Banshee, M, Jubilee, Mondo, and Skin who were all from the series. Was there Chamber? Of course not, and I don’t really blame them for not trying to have Chamber in a 90s made-for-TV movie. But he was replaced with Refrax, (stop changing it to “reflux,” spellcheck). And then they created a character named Buff to replace Husk, which was also kind of understandable. All these characters were played by actors no one has ever heard of, so I’m not bothering to list them. But for everyone mad about race swapping in films, here’s one to really get mad about because Jubilee was portrayed by an actress with the last name McComb. I’m fairly sure Scotch/Irish is a bit far off from Chinese descent. The one actor of note in this film is Matt Frewer (Max Headroom, Eureka, The Watchmen, and most importantly Berlinghoff Rasmussen from The Star Trek: TNG episode “A Matter of Time”) who played a made-up villain (well, all the characters are made-up, but not original to the comic) Doctor Russell Tresh. When the movie was released, I was fifteen and still had a bedtime of 9pm. My mother did not think this an important enough of a film to stay up watching TV past 9pm on a school night (it came out on a Tuesday), so I did not watch this until years later on YouTube. I fell asleep then so I could not tell you the actual plot. This should probably be lower on the list, at least swapped with Corman’s FF film.
71 – The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990) – 41% – This third made-for-TV movie which spun out of the classic television series from the late 70s and early 80s was the final story for that run. The film was directed by the star of the show, Bill Bixby, and was written by Gerald Di Pego (The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Phenomenon, and Message in a Bottle). This also starred, of course, Billy Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as the priors alter ego and the titular character. I remember watching this when it premiered and I haven’t watched it since, so my only recollection is that the Hulk dies from falling out of a plane. Unlike the prior two entries there are no other Marvel characters that show up, which is mostly what I remember about the other films. Rumor is that She-Hulk was originally supposed to be in this which would’ve definitely raised the average score a few points. This is worth a watch if you’re a fan of the original series but is fairly boring and uneventful even with the Hulk’s death.
70 – The Punisher (1989) – 41% – From Mark Goldblatt, the director of the Joe Piscopo vehicle Dead Heat comes our very first R-Rated Marvel film. Mark Goldblatt directed only two movies and one episode of the television series Eerie, Indiana. What he’s known for is being an editor for such classic films as Terminator, Terminator 2, True Lies, Armageddon, and X-Men: The Last Stand (the third worst X-Men film according to this very list). The film was written by Boaz Yakin (Prince of Persia, Now You See Me, and the underappreciated western The Harder They Fall). Dolph Lundrgren (Rocky IV, The Expendables, and Kindergarten Cop 2) played the titular character of Frank Castle aka The Punisher with Louis Gossett Jr (Enemy Mine, Iron Eagle, and The Watchmen television series) and Nancy Everhard (DeepStar Six) in the support roles. The movie does at least understand the violence of the character, but it doesn’t have the energy or over-top-fun of other similarly toned 80s action revenge flicks which causes it to drag at points (whenever the Punisher isn’t killing people). While the style appears twenty years late, I do absolutely love the title credits of this film. This movie is easy to find on YouTube for free if you want to check it out for yourself.
69 – Ghost Rider (2007) – 43% – It’s still weird to think that one year before Iron Man came out and started the MCU we had to sit through this film. While I personally think it is a bit low on this list, that obviously doesn’t matter, and I still wouldn’t argue that this is a good movie. The effects and the transformation of the character don’t look entirely dated though. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Simon Birch, and When in Rome) and written by Mark Steven Johnson (Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, and Jack Frost), this was in the point in the 2000s where studios knew comic book films could be profitable, but it was a true crapshoot on whether we the audience were going to get anything great. We had Spider-Man 2 before this, but also Spider-Man 3 after all. This film starred Nicolas Cage (The Rock and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as the titular character. Cage at least is being full Cage in this role which does bring some energy to an otherwise flat film. His love interest is played by Eva Mendes (Training Day and The Other Guys). The film also stars Wes Bentley (American Beauty and Yellowstone) as Blackheart because we hadn’t learned our lesson yet from allowing Stephen Dorff to play an uncharismatic and unthreatening villain in Blade. The film also starred Sam Elliot (The Big Lebowski, Roadhouse, and The Hulk), Donal Logue (Blade and Gotham) and Peter Fonda (I think this was his first movie).
68 – Daredevil (2003) – 43% – And speaking of Mark Steven Johnson. This is another film which I think is lower on the list than it deserves, especially if we’re talking about the director’s cut. This was early in the comic-to-film days, and there was a lot of experimentation going on here. Which doesn’t always work, but at least there was effort and intent put into the film. It does have a soundtrack which is incredibly dated featuring such acts as Evanescence, Seether, The Calling, Saliva, Drowning Pools, Hoobastank, and Finger Eleven. On a side note, the year after this film was released, I took my wife (then fiancée) to a concert featuring multiple of these acts. I’m unsure if I have ever seen a band look more bored than with Hoobastank playing The Reason. Speaking of bored acting, Ben Affleck stars as Daredevil in this film, and hated it so much that he refused to ever do another comic book movie again until (which he then recanted when Warner Bros gave him a giant check to play Batman). This also starred Jennifer Garner (Alias), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin… you need to watch it), Jon Favreau (Iron Man and other MCU films), Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix and Memento), and Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile and Talladega Nights). Michael Clarke Duncan would reprise his role of the Kingpin in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, the MTV series featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Spider-Man/Peter Parker. According to Jon Favreau this is the film where he met Kevin Feige and they started having discussions which would eventually lead him to direct Iron Man. As one final note, the meet/cute fight scene between Daredevil and Elektra is one of the worst fight scenes from any film on this list.
67 – Morbius (2022) – 44% – Written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt… how do these guys keep getting their scripts greenlit) and directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life… which was an ok Alien rip-off) this was Sony’s second attempt to start their own Spider-Man cinematic universe. Now, someone out there is screaming at this right now because the Venom sequel came out several months before this did, but Morbius started production and filming ten months before the Venom sequel did. But due to covid, multiple reshoots, and Sony probably knowing it couldn’t compete with a James Bond film, this movie was delayed multiple times. And it shows because this movie is a slog. It was so unliked when it first came out that it became a meme. And like the poor kid in your middle school class who thought everyone was laughing with them instead of at them, Sony mistakenly thought they could re-release this movie into theaters and make more money. This movie stars Jared Leto (Fight Club, Lord of War, Blade Runner 2049, but also Suicide Squad) in the titular role. Matt Smith (Doctor Who) stars as the villain and I would argue the only charismatic element in the entire film. This film also stars Adria Arjona (Andor and Triple Frontier), Jared Harris (Chernobyl… another must watch), Al Madrigal (The Daily Show), and Tyrese Gibson (Fast and Furious franchise and Transformers franchise).
66 – Fantastic Four (2005) – 45% – This movie was directed by Tim Story (Ride Along and Barbershop) and written by Michael France (Cliffhanger and Goldeneye) and Mark Frost (co-creator of Twin Peaks) and had an okay cast with Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down and Hornblower) as Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba (Dark Angel and Idle Hands) as Sue Storm, Chris Evans (Not Another Teen Movie) as Johnny Storm, and Michael Chiklis (The Shield) as Ben Grimm. When this was originally announced this was a fairly exciting announcement and we fans were hopeful. And to this day I’ll defend most of the casting of this film. Where the film really failed was with Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck) as Victor Von Doom. While he is far from a bad actor, he may not have been the best choice for the villain in this film. He seemed to play the character as a smooth and overly confident businessman, which mutes the bombastic nature of the character from the comics that we love. We also should’ve learned from this film that Doom’s origin should probably not be part of the Fantastic Four’s origin, but that was obviously ignored by a future film. There was also a lot of backlash over the special effects (both practical and CGI), but mostly related to The Thing’s costume. But the worst moment of the film is obviously Ben Grimm’s fiancée somehow making it all the way across town and over a backed-up bridge just to drop her engagement ring on the ground in front of him.
65 – Spider-Man: The Dragon’s Challenge (1979/1981) – 45% – This was a two-part episode of the Spider-Man television series from the 70s which was edited together and released outside of North America as a movie in theaters in 1981. This was the third Spider-Man movie released this way, and the lowest rated on this list. The series starred Nicholas Hammond (The Sound of Music) as Peter Parker / Spider-Man and Robert F. Simon (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) as J. Jonah Jameson. There are a lot of other characters in this but almost none from the comics. I remember catching the series in re-run as a kid and being extremely excited, but quickly losing interest whenever Spider-Man wasn’t on screen. It isn’t good, but for a television show from the 70s it is what it is. I can’t recommend watching this if you’re under 40 as you’ll be instantly bored to death. I’m honestly a little shocked this is ranked this high on the list.
64 – Punisher: War Zone (2008) – 46% – This was the third Punisher movie and is considered a reboot of the 2004 Punisher film which was a reboot of the 1989 film. This film stars Ray Stevenson (Volstagg from the MCU) as Frank Castle / The Punisher and Dominic West (The Wire and The Crown) as Jigsaw. The film also starred Julie Benz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), and Doug Hutchison (Tooms in the X-Files). The film was directed by Lexi Alexander (Green Street Hooligans) and written by Nick Santora (The Sopranos and Prison Break) and Art Marcum and Matt Halloway (Iron Man and Uncharted). The film is an incredibly graphic and dark take on the character, obviously borrowing heavily from the tone of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s run on the character. While the movie is generally disliked by most audiences, it is famously defended by Patton Oswalt as one of the most gritty, violent, and funny Marvel movies. I personally don’t entirely disagree with Mr. Oswalt on this, and as a fan of Ennis and Dillon’s take on the character as an almost personality void crime-killing-machine, I find this to be an interesting and enjoyable take on the character. Edit: Ray Stevenson recently passed away, within a month of this being published, so I do recommend rewatching this not only because it is underrated but also in memory of a great actor.
63 – Dark Phoenix (2019) – 47% – This ninth and final installment of the X-Men film series, and twelfth out of thirteen films as part of Fox’s X-Men Universe which started in 2000, is also the lowest ranked film of that series. The film was written and directed by Simon Kinsberg (writer of X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and 2015’s Fantastic Four). The film starred many of the characters introduced in the X-Men prequel series including Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Jean Grey / The Dark Phoenix (Sophie Turner). While the events of the film X-Men: Days of Future Past erased the events of X-Men: The Last Stand from the timeline in Fox’s X-Men universe, this film somehow thought it was worthwhile to revisit and reboot some of the plot and themes of that film. The movie is considered one of the largest box office bombs of all time with an estimated loss of somewhere between 79-133 million dollars at the time of its release. I watched this movie one time and remember almost nothing of the film because I’m fairly certain I fell asleep.
62 – Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) – 47% – This movie was a sequel to the 2005 Fantastic Four film and had almost all the same actors and cast returning. Don Payne (Thor and Thor: The Dark World) co-wrote this film. The new cast in the film was Doug Jones (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Shape of Water) as The Silver Surfer with Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix and Hannibal) providing the voice to the character. For me personally this was the best part of the film, even though later it surfaced that Doug Jones was not made aware that he would be dubbed as was also the case in the first Hellboy film. The film obviously took its influence from the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run of the film with the marriage of Sue and Reed, the coming of Galactus (even though the representation of the character felt more akin to the Ultimate Gah Lak Tus), and FF #57 and #58 where Doom steals the Surfer’s powers. As it happens with many of the films on this list the film tried to pack too many narrative threads into a compact time frame and many of the issues from the previous film weren’t properly corrected.
61 – Blade: Trinity (2004) – 48% – Directed and written by David S. Goyer (writer of Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, the other Blade films, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy), this third film in the franchise stars once again Wesley Snipes as the titular character. This film adds to the cast Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) basically playing Deadpool and Jessica Biel (Seventh Heaven) trying hard to get away from typecasting from her stint on Seventh Heaven. Kris Kristofferson returns to play Whistler, a vampire hunting version of Kris Kristofferson. Dominic Purcell stars as Dracula while Parker Posey and Triple H star as the most unterrifying vampires since the first Blade film. The film seems to be intent on being cool rather than being a film and telling us a story.
