With the recent release of Black Widow, there’s once again a new order to watch the Marvel movies. With 24 movies, 3 TV shows, and even more in the way, you might need a watch order to help make sense of the MCU. Like the Avengers, we’re here to save the day, with an updated watch order that’ll help you make sense of the MCU following Black Widow.
How to watch Marvel movies in an order that makes sense
Below is the new and updated MCU watch order, complete with Black Widow. Some films are best to watch out of release order – and we explain all of the timeline-hopping after the list.
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Captain Marvel
- Iron Man
- Iron Man 2
- The Incredible Hulk
- Thor
- The Avengers
- Iron Man 3
- Thor: The Dark World
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Ant-Man
- Captain America: Civil War
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Black Widow
- Doctor Strange
- Black Panther
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Avengers: Endgame
- WandaVision
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Loki
Clearly, there’s a jumbled timeline here, so let’s get into it.
Both the first Captain America and Captain Marvel take place in the twentieth century, so they come first. Marvel confirmed that Iron Man 2 takes place just before Edward Norton’s Hulk – so check out the sequel before The Incredible Hulk. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 picks up just after the first one – despite releasing three years later.
The recent Black Widow film, as well as Spider-Man: Homecoming, pick up on the MCU post-Civil War, while Thor: Ragnarok and Ant-Man and the Wasp tackle the immediate build-up to Infinity War. From there, it’s mostly plain sailing, in chronological order.
However, the recent release of Loki means anything could happen to the MCU timeline going forward. This is currently the best order to make sense of the franchise – but with the God of Mischief about, anything could change.
