1. X-Men: First Class
2. Spider-Man 2
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Captain America: The First Avenger 
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past

The rest of them don't really register with me or I actively dislike them.

1. Spider-Man
2. Spider-Man 2
3. Avengers
4. Captain America: First Avenger
5. Captain America: Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man
7. Amazing Spider-Man
8. Incredible Hulk
9. Iron Man 2
10. Amazing Spider-Man 2

Whoa, and I thought the 10 and counting live action Marvel Studios movies would be pushing it...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The Avengers

X2
Iron Man
Spider-Man 2
Guardians of the Galaxy


Blade

Ghost Rider
Thor
X-Men Days of Future Past




I love Evans as Cap, but the first film is just OK, Iron Man 2 and 3 are awful, Spidey 1 suffers from that appalling Green Goblin, and as much as I want to love them the X movies are very hit or miss with the Wolverine solos being very much a miss.

1> Avengers
2> Guardians of the Galaxy
3> Iron Man
4> Captain America: The First Avenger
5> Thor
6> Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7> X-Men
8> Iron Man 2
9> X2: X-Men United
10> Spider-Man
11> Iron Man 3
12> Thor: The Dark World
13> Fantastic Four
14> X-Men: Days of Future Past
15> X-Men: First Class
16> Ghost Rider
17> Spider-Man 2

Didn't like either of the Hulks, FF 2, X-Men 3 (or "Let's Kill the X-Franchise"), Spider-Man 3 (let's cram in all the villains we can think of and make Spidey emo to boot), or Ghost Rider 2 (Nicholas Cage gets paternal with the son of satan? Just no). Can't say about the Amazing Spider-Man 1 or 2. I have them on my DVR, but can't convince anyone else that we should watch them. Worth watching or no?

Let me start with a ranking of the modern Marvel films, that is the theatrical releases since Blade. I'll come back one day to insert the other stuff. These are not my favorites, this is all of them.


35. Fantastic Four. One of the worst films I have ever seen. Easily the worst superhero film and worst adaptation of any comic. I have never left a theatre so angry than when seeing this film. I have not seen it in 10 years, because I never wish to watch it again. The worst thing? Obviously Dr. Doom. They took the best villain in comics and gave us instead... that. No resemblance to the character or to anything worth watching. The next worst thing? The inane plot and failure of character arc. If I recall the summary of the movie, it starts off okay. They have these powers and are confused. Reed and Sue want to stay home and think things through. Johnny wants to go have fun. Ben wants to mope. All good so far. The movie had a chance. Then what? Ben causes an incident on the bridge, and they rescue people. They endanger and then rescue people, and for some reason get hailed as heroes. Then Dr. Doom attacks them, and they defeat him. They then get a parade. For defeating a guy who attacked them. Ben's character arc came to a close, as he made a choice to stay The Thing to help his friends. The other character arcs? They forgot about them to get to the action. They had a decent setup, then completely forgot about it to deal with their horrible villain, whose plot seemed stolen from Green Goblin in the Spider-Man film. A bit of murder in the name of corporate espionage. Even typing this is making me angry. I hate this film.

34. Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. About a year ago, it occurred to me I had seen almost every modern superhero film, and all but 2 Marvel films. A friend owned them, so I borrowed them on a whim. This film was less upsetting than its predecessor, because I went in expecting a terrible film and it was no more terrible than expected. Dr. Doom still sucked. Jessica Alba was no better. The plot made no particular sense. The only truly disappointing thing in this film was Galactus. A cloud of energy who was defeated in about 2 minutes. I found this film interesting because I had believed it impossible to capture a villain onscreen worse than they had with Dr. Doom. I appreciated the effort they put into making Galactus so boring and worthless.

33. Blade: Trinity. This film was not personally upsetting to me. I haven't seen it since the theatre, and don't recall it all that well. The production was shoddy. Ryan Reynolds was in it. Wesley Snipes seemed old and tired. It was kind of sad to watch.

32. X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman is a great Wolverine. It takes a little more to make a movie. A sensible script really helps. There were some decent actors in the film. And Ryan Reynolds. I don't hate it.

31. Elektra. A movie a lot of people hate, but I found enjoyable to sit through. Basically entertaining. I'm not sure exactly what it was about, and Jennifer Garner is poorly cast as Elektra. But, you know, she fought some guys with mystical powers, and seemed to win. Not sure what the movie had to do with Elektra, but as B-movies where an action heroine fights some mystical villains go, I think this is passable.

30. The Incredible Hulk. Nobody liked that first Hulk movie. Nobody but me. So they started over, and mostly downgraded. Jennifer Connelly became Liv Tyler. Sam Elliott became William Hurt. I like Hurt, but Elliott was perfect, because he's Sam Elliott. Norton had the potential to be a good Bruce Banner, if he'd, y'know, wanted to be. Instead, he seemed upset that the filmmakers were making a terrible film, and just wanted no part of it. He showed up, read his lines, cashed his check, and left. From interviews, I believe he had wanted to make a good Hulk film and was sad when he realized early on this wasn't it. What we got was a movie without any soul. Made by a studio to an outline. Just boring and lifeless.

29. X-Men: The Last Stand. Singer left to go make a terrible Superman film, and a new director came on to destroy the franchise. There were bits I liked. Kelsey Grammar as Beast. Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde. Anna Paquin's decision to take the Cure. The defiance of expectation by killing so many major characters offscreen. But the movie was dreary. So many characters, all indistinguishable in any visual sense, no personalities, and just a big mess. Good actors wasted without a script. All that said, I basically enjoyed sitting through it. But it was disappointing. X-Men taught me superhero movies could be good. This reminded me they usually wouldn't be.

28. Punisher: War Zone. A forgettable film. No particular complaints, but I don't recall it all that well.

27. Daredevil. They made his powers sonar instead of radar based. But they depicted it well. I thought the scene where he used the rain to "look" at Elektra was beautiful. Some good details about what being blind is like. A couple melodramatic lines I liked. Colin Farrell seemed to have fun as Bullseye. With a better script, I think Michael Clarke Duncan could have been good as Kingpin. The flaws? Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. And then the script. Just tried to do too much. Jamming into a short film Daredevil's origin, his romance with Elektra, her fall to darkness, her death, the Fall of the Kingpin... It was a whirlwind tour of Daredevil's greatest hits without pausing to give any substance. And then making Kingpin be the killer of Matt's father. Just lazy writing. An easy way to make a rivalry. Stolen from the Burton Batman film. Heck, even the easy identification in the form of the signature. Though instead of a line, it's a rose left on the victim. Pat, easy, lazy, cliche. But it had its moments, just not enough.

26. Spider-Man 3. The best thing that can be said is that Sam Raimi apologized. Where to start? Venom? Nah, too easy. Let's go with Sandman. First we reveal Sandman killed Uncle Ben? Why? See the Daredevil entry and lazy writing. Let's look at Sandman's arc. A small time criminal gains super powers and wants to help his daughter. Then at some point he seems to have forgotten about his daughter and just wants to crush Spider-Man. Why? Maybe a deleted scene explains it. Then, in the middle of his trying to crush Spider-Man, he learns he killed Spider-Man's uncle, feels bad about, and no longer wants to crush Spider-Man. Why? I'm still not sure why he was trying to crush Spider-Man and not help his daughter in the first place. But now he just wants to apologize to Spider-Man. No real point spending too many more words on this film. I like Raimi. I like this franchise. I even enjoyed much of this film. But man...

25. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Nic Cage seemed to be enjoying himself.

24. Iron Man 2. This film is two movies mushed together. One is a pretty good film about Whiplash and Justin Hammer, both ably portrayed by excellent actors, forming a tight dramatic narrative leading to an exciting action climax. But we seem to pause that film, to have Tony Stark hang out with SHIELD a lot, to remind us we are part of a cinematic universe and that the Avengers movie is coming. The SHIELD plot gets resolved not because anything happens in the film, but because a mystical hammer lands in the desert and distracts them. So we have two films, a good one; and an ad for the Avengers film. Like Spider-Man 3 and Incredible Hulk, this is an example of the studio stepping in and ruining a film.

23. The Amazing Spider-Man. They seem to have really missed the point of the burglar scene in this film. For more comments, see below.

22. The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I think these were both decent films. They improved over the Raimi ones in the chemistry of the leads. Andrew Webb and Emma Stone actually look like they like each other. And both are able actors. The whole series, and particularly the second one, just still had that hand-of-the-studio feel. A lot of things needed to be in there to set up coming films in the franchise and it distracted from what could have been good films.

21. Ghost Rider. With the Amazing Spider-Man films and this, we are transitioning from the bad films into the almost-good films. The story was basically right, to the extent the Ghost Rider story can be right. Sam Elliott is always hard to argue with. Been a while since I've seen it, but I enjoyed it.

20. Blade II. Again, been a while since I've seen it. My recollection is that it lacked the tightness in production of Blade, going instead for a complicated story. The story had more ambiguity and was more interesting, but also more rambling. Not quite smart enough, not quite tight enough. Almost good.

19. The Punisher. A lot to not like, but I tended to enjoy it. I though Thomas Jane was well-cast (I think the Dirty Laundry short film proves that). I think it got to the basics of Punisher. And it did what it was supposed to, I think. Had bad people being bad enough to bring you (or at least me) to a place where you're ready to enjoy somebody violently giving them what they deserve. I think that's the best a Punisher film can hope for. John Travolta... was not very good.

18. The Wolverine. Much better than the last. Wolverine in Japan. Seeking an end to his seemingly eternal life. A fine premise. Hugh Jackman delivers, as does much of the cast. The movie just needed a stronger villain. Its Viper is weird, and the armored samurai suit just wasn't quite it. Another movie whose action climax just wasn't there.

17. Captain America: The First Avenger. Now we get into the good films. I think Marvel has put out 17 quite good films in the past 17 years. And here we are. I'll admit I'm one of those guys who expresses his opinion about casting on the internet (Ben Affleck as Batman?!?) and I think I have a pretty good track record. My biggest misstep was Chris Evans, who I predicted would be terrible (I could get away with it though and pretend otherwise since my predictions were lost in the wipe of CBR) and wasn't. I still don't think he's great. There have been a lot of perfectly cast superheroes and he is not one of them. But he is good. I was wrong to doubt him. Tommy Lee Jones is a fine actor, but I'm not sure what he was doing in the film. Guess they wanted one more big name. The tone of the first half of the film is pretty perfect. It loses me a bit in the Hydra sci/fi weapons aspects of the plot. I think I would have enjoyed a more straightforward WWII style story. The character of Bucky was not well-enough realized, not enough to earn his place in the second movie. But, it was a good film. Hard to claim that wasn't Captain America up on screen.

16. Thor. So close, this film was. He's arrogant and does stupid things, gets banished to earth to learn humility, learns it, and is allowed to wield his hammer again. That's the right story. Expect that lesson should probably have taken more than a day. He's forced to live as a mortal for what? 24 hours? And what happens in that time? A pretty girl bats her eyes and his character does a 180. No. Right idea, but they didn't earn it. The movie's other failing seemed to be in budget. They failed to realize Asgard as a vibrant world. Because they only built two Asgard sets, inside the palace and the edge of the Rainbow Bridge. We never saw a character go from one to the other. They just left one and showed up at the other. Created a very low-budget feel when it should have been creating a world. The second film would improve upon this and let Asgard breathe. But it was almost there, this film.

15. Hulk. Only I love this film. Not perfect. Bruce Banner should have been a victim of his own weapon, not his father's schemes. A plot hole or two. But Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott... a cast that's hard to argue with. And it gets into the psychology of Hulk, which I'm always a sucker for. That this is Bruce Banner's inner trauma manifest. And Hulk fights the army. Just as he should. And Absorbing Man? It was the first film to be smart with superpowers, to explore their limits rather than basics. If he absorbs a wall, it's hard to tell where he ends and the wall begins. And he absorbs energy and water and becomes a storm. It's all pretty cool. I think this is a fine film.

14. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Avengers showed them how to do it and they did it again. Another blockbuster action film, this time with a bit more to it. A bit of anti-big government. Captain America gives a speech. I don't think it's a great film, but I think it's a well-realized ride.

13. Iron Man 3. Now Downey Jr. is called upon to play a different character, one dealing with some PTSD-related issues. He's not as good at it, but his dynamic with his kid sidekick is fun. Getting a chance to see him be a hero when stripped of his armor and resources was exactly what the movie needed. And unlike the first film, and many first films, the action climax brings it. It's a hell of a scene, and even gives Pepper Potts the chance to be the hero. Casting the right love interest and figuring out what to do with them has been tricky in these films. Gwyenth Paltrow as Pepper Potts is the best of them, and this movie is the best use of her. Heck, this film even passes the Bechdel test! Is it the only Marvel superhero film to do so?

12. Blade. A little apart from the current wave of superhero films, which I maintain started with X-Men... but in some sense it started here. A high budget successful adaptation of a Marvel property. Not quite a superhero. More of a vampire hunter. But these things are similar. Wesley Snipes isn't much of an actor, but didn't need to be. The plot is simple, but it perhaps should be. There are vampires to kill, and the film is solidly made.

11. Thor: The Dark World. Following Avengers, we get another excellent fun summer blockbuster roller coaster. You laugh, you get excited, you get sad. You get something a little more perhaps in Tom Hiddleston, who again brings Loki to life, this time a more conflicted character. He wants to rule earth, he hates Asgard, he hates Odin. But he did love his mother. Natalie Portman seems to put more into the role this time, likely because the script gives her more to do. She can be a capable actress, but the first movie needed her to bat her eyes. What I loved about this film was that it was so cosmic. Set on several worlds, unafraid to explore its universe, to spend much of the movie not on earth, and to create a vibrant, breathing Asgard. I loved and enjoyed it? The flaw? Malekith was a poorly realized villain. Getting a good villain is hard, as many of these otherwise great movies prove.

10. Spider-Man. My favorite character. Brought to life. That just was the Spider-Man story on screen. Tobey Maguire. JK Simmons. I was so afraid it would get it wrong and so happy it got it right. But man, the Green Goblin. Wasn't right. I honestly don't think he can be. I don't think the rubber costume would have worked. The Ultimate Hulk-like version didn't work. The suit of armor really didn't work. Willem Dafoe tried. He's a good actor and did a fine job as Norman. But didn't know what to do in that suit of armor. It was stupid. And it meant the big action finale was stupid. For as perfectly as they captured Spider-Man and his origin, they blew the Green Goblin.

9. X-Men. The movie that proved superhero films could be good. I went in with no expectations and came out seeing the future we now live in. I think we owe all the great movies of recent years to X-Men. It found a great cast in Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, and Anna Paquin. It had some great X-Menish dialogue about the place of mutants in the world, and the political and moral questions surrounding the phenomenon. It works as smart science fiction, exploring a premise. It gives us good character moments. "Does it hurt when they come out?", Rogue asks Wolverine. "Every time," he says. So much was just right. What was wrong? Halle Berry as Storm. And the ending. The battle at Liberty Island was just unimpressive. Magneto's plot to turn politicians into mutants was just a bit too silly for the tone of the rest of the film. The action scene was gratuitous and poorly executed. X2 would fix these flaws.

8. X-Men: First Class. Matthew Vaughn gives us a younger version of the X-Men in a film set in the '60s that also works hard to look like it was written in the '60s, and Kevin Bacon delivers as a '60s Bond villain. The film is earned though by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. We had great actors playing Xavier and Magneto already, but these two take it up a notch, and deliver that core friendship-turned-rivalry that is at the heart of X-Men. Michael Fassbender in particular just IS Magneto. The other somewhat surprising strong point was the character of Mystique, completely reimagined for this film, with excellent work by Jennifer Lawrence.

7. The Avengers. We already had the setup. The new piece was Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, and he was perfect. Blew Norton and Bana out of the water. The right amount of nervousness, looking always like a basically good guy sorry that he occasionally gets mad and breaks things. The Loki-manipulated character conflict all worked. Tom Hiddleston as Loki is one of the greatest comic book villains on screen. The action was perfect. But most of the movie was setup for the ending. The opposite of many superhero films that got lost in the climactic action scene, this movie put all its heart and soul into one epic battle, with drama and humor, a roller coaster like no other. The summer blockbuster movie that Michael Bay wished he could make. Is it perfect? No. Really, much of the film is merely fine. Hulk, Loki, and the Battle for New York are why it ranks so highly. And, it's missing something else. Not everyone will agree but I claim superhero films can be smart, can have a thematic richness to them. And I think Raimi's Spider-Man and Singer's X-Men (and Nolan's Batman) were generally interesting films. Whereas Avengers is only fun. If you dig into it, it seems pretty vapid and maybe a little fascist. But "only fun" may be all a good superhero film needs.

6. Big Hero 6. Start with a crappy comic, throw out the crap, keep some very basic elements, and build something beautiful. Damned hard to do. Done perfectly here. Who knew an animated superhero film could be this good (Well, anybody who saw the Incredibles, I guess). Part of its strength lay in a key choice it made. How do you introduce 6 superheroes and do them all justice? You don't. You don't try. A team of 6 heroes forms, but you keep the focus on 2. There will be other films for the others. So while this is the origin of a superhero team, that is in the background. The foreground is a buddy movie between a kid and his robot. And who knew that could be so good (Well, anybody who saw Iron Giant, I guess). Flaws? None worth mentioning. This movie was funny when it wanted to be, poignant when it wanted to be, and just a good superhero adventure when it wanted to be.

5. Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play an arrogant alcoholic womanizer. Who knew? This film is driven almost entirely but one actor doing an excellent job. The best cast lead actor in any of these films. It's a compelling character that is just fun to watch. And the movie gets the suit and the story and all that right. Perfect? No. It suffers from what almost every first superhero film seems to suffer from, and must now seem like a broken record coming from me. (And this list doesn't even have my review of Batman Begins). The action climax felt tacked on. The movie was all going well. Then it was time for Jeff Bridges to put on armor and fight the hero. Because that's how these movies need to end. And it was fine. But it wasn't great.

4. X-Men: Days of Future Past. Brian Singer did it again for the third time. But now with a more epic plot, adapting perhaps the best X-Men comic ever, with the epic kept emotionally grounded in tying the battle for the future to the battle for the soul of Mystique, excellent melodrama (I just love the trailer, when James McAvoy practically spits out, "I don't want your suffering... I don't want. Your. Future!") and Michael Fassbender, whose Magneto is a character I just get lost in. I find myself forgetting it's an actor and that I'm not hearing Magneto talk. Plus my perhaps favorite use of superpowers in film. A great scene where we see "Quicksilver time", and Blink. Blink was perfect. Flaws? Script and plot could have been tightened up here or there. And I think the Vaughn film did a better job with capturing the feel of the period in his First Class film, whereas it felt like dressing here.

3. X2: X-Men United. Like the Spider-Man films, that first movie got closer to capturing X-Men than I could ever have dreamed. But the flaws were maddening. X2 did it again, but with a cleaner pass. All the strengths of the first film. But with a smoother plot, better action better integrated into the story. Nightcrawler in the White House remains among my favorite superhero action scenes. Plus strong characterization for the younger generation, Iceman and Pyro, getting right to the core themes of X-Men. Flaws? The title. It's a terrible, terrible title.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a thing now, superhero films. Studios are ready to trust the genre. They're ready to spend the money. The Marvel Studios films are getting better and better, and I believe the best is yet to come. This list is premature as Avengers 2 will certainly blow us away. Fun space opera with high production value like we rarely see. A Star Wars for the new generation. Fun soundtrack cleverly integrated into the plot. But the movie was earned by the strong characterizations of the team. People with very relatable problems, finding others who don't quite fit in, and bonding together. It was perfectly done. The weakest point? Ronan. Lee Pace just didn't bring it. Perhaps he wasn't able to through all the make-up. The movie needed a Darth Vader, and Pace as Ronan just wasn't it.

1. Spider-Man 2. The first film really nailed who and what Spider-Man is, but had its flaws. This fixed almost all of them. Drawing its story from Amazing Spider-Man annual 1 and issue 50, keeping a strong thematic focus on the core of Spider-Man: the attempt to balance conflicting responsibilities, your own needs with those of others. A great villain in Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus. One of the great villains thus far. JK Simmons as JJJ remaining one of the best adapted characters in the history of comic book movies. The one weak spot remaining from the first film was Kirsten Dunst, who seemed to phone in the role, and had no chemistry with Tobey. But, while keeping it from being perfect, no other Marvel film matches it.