Marvel Cinematic Universe: what is the best phase so far?

Debating what the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could occupy a good chunk of time, and, with a current roster of 31 movies (As of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), we’d probably have a dozen movies getting a number one vote from a few people. But, a much easier question to pose is: what’s the best Phase in the MCU? Phase IV ended with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Technically Phase IV ended with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, but I’m only going be consider movies in this ranking.

Here’s a quick list of the movies in each phase so you can glance through and see which one you would rate the highest. Below I have tables with every movie and their rating from IMDb.com, and RottenTomatoes Critics/Users, and as a kicker, I have the Peeple’s Poll results from the RunPee app for the last three movies of Phase III and all of Phase IV.

Phase I

• Iron Man
• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron Man 2
• Thor
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Marvel’s The Avengers.

Can you imagine going back in time to 2008 and telling yourself that Robert Downey Jr. would make Iron Man a cultural phenomenon and the subsequent movies would still be going strong after 15 years and 31 movies and numerous TV series?

Phase II

• Iron Man 3
• Thor: The Dark World
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Ant-Man

I don’t think this is the best phase, but we have to appreciate some solid groundwork that was laid down in these movies. Plus, we were introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Phase III

• 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.

Wow, this was just a relentless string of powerful movies. Personally, half of my top-10 MCU movies came in this phase.

Phase IV

• Black Widow
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Eternals
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• Thor: Love and Thunder
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

There were some hits and misses in this phase. You don’t need me to tell you which ones were which. 🙂

Favorite?

My choice for my favorite phase is easy. What about yours? Take a minute to pick yours before you see the data below.

Deep Data Dive

Here’s a chart of all the movies rated by IMDb.com, RottenTomatoes Critics/Users, and the Peeple’s Poll, followed by the raw data.

 

Phase I

#	Year	Title	IMDb	RT-critics	RT-users	Peeple
1	2008	Iron Man	79%	94%	91%
2	2008	The Incredible Hulk	67%	67%	70%
3	2010	Iron Man 2	70%	73%	71%
4	2011	Thor	70%	78%	76%
5	2011	Captain America: The First Avenger	69%	80%	74%
6	2012	Marvel’s The Avengers	80%	91%	91%
		Average	73%	81%	79%

Phase II

#	Year	Title	IMDb	RT-critics	RT-users	Peeple
7	2013	Iron Man 3	72%	79%	78%
8	2013	Thor: The Dark World	69%	67%	76%
9	2014	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	77%	90%	92%
10	2014	Guardians of the Galaxy	80%	91%	92%
11	2015	Avengers: Age of Ultron	73%	75%	83%
12	2015	Ant-Man	73%	83%	86%
		Average	74%	81%	85%

Phase III

#	Year	Title	IMDb	RT-critics	RT-users	Peeple
13	2016	Captain America: Civil War	78%	91%	89%
14	2016	Doctor Strange	75%	89%	86%
15	2017	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	76%	84%	87%
16	2017	Spider-Man: Homecoming	74%	92%	87%
17	2017	Thor: Ragnarok	79%	93%	87%
18	2018	Black Panther	89%	97%	97%
19	2018	Avengers: Infinity War	85%	85%	91%
20	2018	Ant-Man and the Wasp	71%	88%	76%
21	2019	Captain Marvel	70%	78%	78%	85%
22	2019	Avengers: Endgame	85%	94%	90%	92%
23	2019	Spider-Man: Far From Home	76%	90%	95%	87%
		Average	78%	89%	88%	88%

Phase IV

#	Year	Title	IMDb	RT-critics	RT-users	Peeple
24	7/2021	Black Widow	67%	79%	91%	85%
25	9/2021	Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings	74%	91%	98%	88%
26	11/2021	Eternals	63%	47%	77%	76%
27	12/2021	Spider-Man: No Way Home	82%	93%	98%	92%
28	5/2022	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	69%	74%	85%	81%
29	7/2022	Thor: Love and Thunder	63%	64%	77%	80%
30	11/2022	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	68%	84%	94%	84%
		Average	69%	76%	89%	84%

Observations

According to IMDb and RT/critics, the best MCU movie is Black Panther with 89% and 97% respectively. RT/users rank Spider-Man: No Way Home the highest with 98%. RunPee users are split between Spider-Man: No Way Home and Avengers: Endgame with a 92% in the Peeple’s Poll.

Eternals is the lowest-rated movie by all accounts except for RT/users. RT/users gave that honor to Ant-Man and the Wasp with a 76%. Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder come in a close second to worse with 77%.

Focus on Phases

Here’s a look at the averages of the phases by themselves without the mess of all the individual movies.

Things I notice

First, what the H is up with IMDb.com? They consistently rate movies lower than anyone else, and it’s not even close.

Second, the RottenTomatoes critics and users are in agreement for Phase III, but they couldn’t be more different from each other in Phase IV. I’m shocked that RT/Users have Phase IV rated higher than Phase III. I mean, Phase IV had Eternals, by far the lowest-rated of all MCU movies.

Average the averages

If we average the averages of IMDb, RT/critics, and RT/users then we get the following result. (I’m going to leave the Peeple’s Poll results out of it since we don’t have complete data.)

It makes sense to me that Phase III comes out on top. That is by far my favorite phase. But the RT/users rated Phase IV at the top, yet when we look at the overall average Phase IV comes out last, by just a hair. And Phase II is the 2nd best? Really?

I just had to see how Eternals impacted the overall ratings for Phase IV. If I remove that movie from the Phase IV roster then the number change as so:

IMDb: 69% to 71%

RT/critics: 76% to 81%

RT/users: 89% to 91%

Peeple’s Poll: 84% to 85%

That would bring Phase IV’s Average of averages up to 81% and the second-best phase of the bunch. Interesting what one rotten apple can do to the fruit salad.

How about you? What’s your favorite phase of the MCU?