4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
There’s something to be said for taking a film about the world’s most star-spangled super soldier and turning it into an edge-of-seat espionage thriller. Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn’t just your average superhero sequel and, having said that, it rarely feels like anything other than its own entity. That’s how good the world that Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely built is.
An soldier out of time and with no desire to be there, Steve Rogers is thrust into the midst of a war between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the resurgence of Hydra and, after failing to comply with the corrupt rules of either organization, is declared Public Enemy No.1.
The film was very specific about its supporting characters, adding only those who would thrive in this surprisingly more realistic world such as Black Widow and Falcon, and the whole narrative built towards the reveal of Bucky’s fate beautifully. And it all served as the perfect vehicle for Chris Evans, who really came into his own here as the modern day iteration of Captain America.
Thrilling, suspenseful and, at times, unnerving, if the MCU had an equivalent to The Dark Knight, then it would undoubtedly be this one. The fact that Markus, McFeely and the Russo brothers managed to take Cap, who had literally just battled freakin’ aliens in The Avengers, strip him down to his core values and make him a believable protagonist in a gritty tale of corruption and backstabbing is something that really should be, well, marvelled at.
3. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
The history books may remember Avengers: Endgame for bringing about the culmination of the Infinity Saga but the fact of the matter is that that film was only an extension of a story that Avengers: Infinity War started.
The beginning of the end, so to speak, the film was responsible for pulling the trigger on Thanos’ long-teased master plan and, in doing so, also pulled the trigger on the long-teased crossover between the Avengers and the Guardians of The Galaxy – who had, up until this point, only featured in their own films.
Infinity War was many things all rolled into one. It was a beginning, it was an ending and it was something that had never been done before – bringing together a number of long-running arcs in a bid to give fans the best (and most shocking) opening to the bumper-sized final chapter of the MCU.
From the multiple different narratives to the new dynamics between characters who had never interacted before, the film felt larger scale (if that’s at all possible) than every single previous offering and, as result, set the stage for what may have been (at the time) the most incredible battle in Hollywood history. And it’s worth it just alone for Thor’s epic entrance.
Heartbreaking, triumphant and jaw-dropping all at once, Infinity War is an emotional rollercoaster that, most of the time, actually flows better than its successor and, even though there are times that it often just feels like the beginning of the end(game), it accomplished everything it set out to do and, in the process, amazed audiences beyond belief.