How To Watch The Marvel Films in Order

I have only seen the Marvel films here and there and never really connected the dots. The Avengers was huge and I missed out on the whole end game hype so I decided to start watching them from the beginning. I subscribed to Disney and luckily all the Marvel films can be found there. Now there are a few ways to watch these films so I spent a bit of time researching what was the best order to watch all of them. You are talking about 40 movies in all and there are little bits in each that intermingle and overlap so I want to make sure I watched them to get the best experience out of them. So there are many ways to watch them but the 2 that stood out most are

1. By order of the film release.
2. By timeline order of the actual film.

There was much debate on the old internet which way to watch them but when I think about it, by film release is the natural way to watch them unless Marvel made a mistake and released a film that had bits it in from future films. After much debate and a punch up with my wife, we settled on the film release date order.
Disney have broken this up into 4 phases for ease of reference which I found very good. So after Christmas we began Phase 1. Phase 1 are the films between 2008 and 2012. They are as follows.

Phase 1 (2008 and 2012)

Source

• Ironman

• The Incredible Hulk

• Ironman 2

• Thor

• Captain America The First Avenger

• The Avengers.

I have to say, I was impressed with all of them especially Captain America. What I found with Phase 1 is that the characters are being developed in the first half of these films so you kinda have to sit through an hour of the story building up before you are into the action really. But they were very good. I was surprised at how good the first Avengers was. Normally in these films you lose your interest half way through but these ones , it didn't happen. Onto Phase 2

Phase 2 (2012 - 2015)

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• Iron Man 3

• Thor: The Dark World

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Avengers: Age of Ultron

• Ant-Man

I still can't believe how many films Marvel have released during these years. It's impressive. It was at a time when I was enjoying the good single life in Germany and spent my evenings wining and dining so these 3 years are a blur to me and I missed out on the Marvel. I do not regret it but I am enjoying catching up.

I'm in the middle of Phase 2 at the moment. I watch the first 3 films. I am on Guardians of the Galaxy tonight. I have seen this before but again I am looking for the little tidbits that connect the whole Marvel Universe. It is strange that they didn't finish off with an Avengers in Phase 2. It is finished off with an Ant-man but there may be a reason for this.

Phase 3 (2016 - 2019)

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• Captain America: Civil War

• Doctor Strange

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

• Spider-Man: Homecoming

• Thor: Ragnarok

• Black Panther

• Avengers: Infinity War

• Ant-Man and the Wasp

• Captain Marvel

• Avengers: Endgame

• Spider-Man: Far From Home

I have seen a couple of these already such as Thor Ragnorok which got me into the series in the first place after watching it over Christmas. I have seen Black Panther as well. But the difference in sound and quality with these later films is amazing. Spiderman joins the franchise here so it will be interesting how he fits in.

Phases 4 (2021 to ???)

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• WandaVision
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
• Loki
• Black Widow
• What If...?
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Hawkeye
• Eternals
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Ms Marvel
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• Thor: Love and Thunder
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• The Marvels
• Moon Knight
• She-Hulk
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
• Blade

Phase 4 is bringing TV series into the Franchise such as Wandavision and Hawkeye due to the ever growing streaming platforms and the decline in cinema due to Covid-19. I have not seen many of these so again it will take me another 6 months to get through them. It will be interesting. I actually started Hawkeye and it is pretty good so far. He is one of the first Avengers and his story is probably more suited to a series. With Wandavision, you need to have watched the first 3 phases to understand what it is all about I am told.

So that's it for now. I wasn't aware on how many movies and TV shows they actually were but it is good to sit down on a Saturday night and know what you are going to watch. They will keep me out of trouble for a while anyway.