What is the best superhero movie of all time?

14/11/2017

Chris Smith

Movies

What is the best superhero movie of all time? [updated with Wonder Woman and Thor: Ragnarok!]

It's a question that has troubled man since the dawn of time (or at least since the early 2000s): what is the best superhero movie of all time?

Well, thanks to science and maths, we have the answer.

We took 82 superhero movies, took their Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes critics' scores and worked out an average. The top 30 scores then progressed to the next stage. Movies we lost at this stage included Dredd (by just 0.5%!), V for Vendetta, Man of Steel, Watchmen, Iron Man 2 and Thor.

Then, we added in the audience scores from IMDB, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, worked out an overall average and knocked our list down to 20. Films lost at this point included Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3, Chronicle, Captain America: The First Avenger and, controversially, Tim Burton's Batman.

As a new superhero movie is released pretty much every week, we'll update this post regularly to account for new flicks. Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther are the newest entries, pushing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, X2: X-Men United and The Lego Batman Movie off the list.

Finally, we had the top 20 superhero movies of all time according to the internet. Starting with…

#20: The Crow

Overall: 80.7%

Critics: 76.5%

Audience: 85%

In The Crow, a dead rock star comes back to life to punish his murderers and play the odd sweet guitar solo on a rooftop (years before Brian May, we might add). It's no surprise people love it so much, because it has the coolest premise of any movie ever.

The Crow's influence can still be felt today, with millions of teenagers choosing to adopt Eric Draven's unique sense of style while hanging around outside McDonald's. It's not quite revenge-and-guitar-solos, but we'll allow it.

#19: Doctor Strange

Overall: 80.75%

Critics: 80.5%

Audience: 81%

Ranking just under Deadpool (due to that film's higher audience score), Doctor Strange was a surprisingly strong Marvel debut for our very own Benedict Cumberbatch. Critics praised the film's balance between Strange's supernatural origins and Marvel's trademark big budget action sequences.

#18: Deadpool

Overall: 80.75%

Critics: 74%

Audience: 87.5%

Deadpool was a massive box office hit across the globe, which surprised a lot of people because a) Deadpool is a pretty obscure character and b) it has a metric ton of swearing and violence in it.

Nevertheless, the completely irreverent humour (which tore superhero movies to shreds) and Ryan Reynold's hilarious performance made this one of the biggest films of 2016, and gave it a place on our top 20 list.

Amazingly, Deadpool has the 4th highest audience approval score in this post: only Batman Begins , Logan and The Dark Knight scored higher.

#17: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Overall: 81%

Critics: 82.5%

Audience: 79.6%

Tom Holland's second movie in the famous web-slinging suit is fast-paced and hugely enjoyable, with Peter Parker trying to readjust back to high school life after his brief superhero experience in Civil War (not exactly easy). However, the emergence of a new villain means Spidey is soon swinging through the Manhattan skyline once again.

#16: Avengers: Infinity War

Overall: 81.4%

Critics: 75.5%

Audience: 87.3%

Infinity War is the biggest Marvel crossover event to date, with pretty much every single character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe cropping up during the Avengers' battle to stop the villainous Thanos from getting his hands on the final Infinity Stones.

While bigger didn't necessarily mean better for critics, audiences gave it the third highest score in the this post!

#15: Avengers Assemble

Overall: 82%

Critics: 80.5%

Audience: 83.6%

The 5th biggest film of all time scrapes in at #12, which is more of a testament to the films coming up than a slight against The Avengers.

You know the drill by now: the world's greatest superheroes (not including Batman, obviously) team up to take on Loki and a horde of flying alien types who want to rule the world and start, like all good intergalactic villains do, with New York.

It's also the first film to do The Hulk justice by allowing him to do what he does best: smash loads of stuff.

#14: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Overall: 82%

Critics: 79.5%

Audience: 84.6%

Let's be honest: Captain America is rubbish. He doesn't have a cool suit like Iron Man. He isn't a god like Thor. He can't turn green and smash stuff like the Hulk. He's just a bloke, frozen in time, who likes America a lot.

So it surprised us all when he starred in of one of Marvel's best films, The Winter Soldier. Taking the form of a spy thriller, The Winter Soldier sees the Cap and Black Widow digging into a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D.

It's so good that directors the Russo Brothers have signed up to direct the next two Avengers films.

#13: Wonder Woman

Overall: 82.5%

Critics: 84%

Audience: 81%

DC's extended universe hasn't had the best start, with Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad all missing out on our list.

Wonder Woman is a sign that things are heading in the right direction. Thanks to some masterful direction from Patty Jenkins and a great performance from Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman is DC's first bona-fide hit and their best movie by far.

#12: Batman Begins

Overall: 82.5%

Critics: 77.5%

Audience: 87.6%

After the absolute travesty that was Batman and Robin, the Dark Knight's film career looked to be over. No-one recovers from that many ice puns.

Enter Christopher Nolan. Then best known for the mind-bending Memento, Nolan went back to basics and rooted Bruce Wayne back in the real world with nary a Bat credit card in sight. The result was one of the best superhero movies in years and inadvertently kicked off the "˜gritty reboot' trend.

#11: Black Panther

Overall: 82.9%

Critics: 92.5%

Audience: 73.3%

Price T'Challa returns to rule Wakanda as king after Captain America: Civil War, but things don't exactly go rosily. Soon enough, he's facing revolt from two adversaries and Wakanda itself is at risk of being drawn into a world war.

Black Panther was a huge success upon release and has even been tipped for an Oscar. It's also the highest-rated superhero movie among critics by a whopping 4.5%!

#10: Thor: Ragnarok

Overall: 83.3%

Critics: 83%

Audience: 83.6%

After two fairly decent movies, everyone's favourite Norse god (well… maybe it's Loki, but that's a debate for another time) finally smashes it out of the park with the wildly entertaining Ragnarok.

Critics and audiences alike praised its fantastic humour, Taika Waititi's brilliant direction and a show-stealing performance from the Hulk.

#9: Spider-Man 2

Overall: 83.5%

Critics: 88%

Audience: 79%

Many critics consider Spider-Man 2 the best superhero movie of all time, combining rip-roaring action with a mature plot and a surprisingly sympathetic villain in Doc Ock. It's like the best of Marvel combined with the best of Nolan's Batman films.

Audiences seem to disagree, however. Spider-Man 2's relatively low audience score – the lowest in the top 12 – drags it down to #9 on our list.

#8: X-Men: Days of Future Past

Overall: 83.9%

Critics: 82.5%

Audience: 85.3%

Days of Future Past takes everything that's good about the X-Men series and throws it all together in an ultra ambitious tale of time travel, mutants and Wolverine kicking seven bells out of people. Unsurprisingly, it's amazing.

#7: The Dark Knight Rises

Overall: 84.2%

Critics: 82.5%

Audience: 86%

Making a follow-up to The Dark Knight was always going to be difficult, so Christopher Nolan didn't bother. Instead, he threw everything 8 years in the future and made a utterly bonkers movie about nuclear weapons, desert prisons and an odd bloke in a mask. It's a flawed but brilliant end to possibly the best superhero series ever.

#6: Captain America: Civil War

Overall: 84.5%

Critics: 82.5%

Audience: 86.6%

Marvel's clash of the titans proves that it is possible to chuck every superhero imaginable into one film and still make it good (yes, we are talking about you Batman v Superman).

The Cap and Iron Man clash over a new law requiring superheroes to register, each bringing their own gang of superheroes to the party.

There's also the first appearance of Spider-Man in a Marvel movie, an occurrence that seemed about as likely as Elvis Presley coming back to life on the back of the Loch Ness Monster or Leicester City winning the Premier League. What a time to be alive, eh?

#5: Superman

Overall: 84.5%

Critics: 89.5%

Audience: 79.6%

The original superhero movie got the highest score from critics but only hit 15th in audience's eyes. We would suggest time hasn't been kind to Superman, but that's not true: this still stands up to this day, even if it is cheesy compared to today's gritty heroes.

#4: Guardians of the Galaxy

Overall: 84.9%

Critics: 83.5%

Audience: 86.3%

Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't the most obvious of hits: it was based on an obscure comic hardly anyone had heard, starred the funny bloke from Parks and Recreation and involved a talking racoon travelling through space.

But here it is: the third best superhero movie of all time. It's fun, silly and epic: pretty much everything you could ask for from a good superhero. Great soundtrack, too.

#3: Iron Man

Overall: 85.7%

Critics: 86.5%

Audience: 85%

Iron Man is the film that set Marvel on their path to world domination, and they have one man to thank for it: Robert Downey Jr.

Without him, this would be a pretty decent superhero flick about yet another rich bloke with a fancy suit. With him, though, Iron Man hits a whole new level of brilliance. No wonder he gets paid so much!

#2: Logan

Overall: 87.8%

Critics: 84.5%

Audience: 90%

A surprise new entry into our chart, Logan is the Wolverine movie everyone wanted; a bleak adventure into the tortured soul of the man behind the claws.

Logan sees Wolverine in hiding with Professor X in a future hostile to mutants. However, Logan is forced to come out fighting when he meets a young mutant being pursued by dark forces.

Logan is dark, violent and powerful, and a fitting send off to both Hugh Jackman and Sir Patrick Stewart.

#1: The Dark Knight

Overall: 89.5%

Critics: 88%

Audience: 91%

The internet has spoken: The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie of all time. And it deserves to be too: with complex themes from government surveillance to the morality of man, it's much weightier than your average superhero film but doesn't get so weighed down that it forgets to be exciting.

Of course, the real star of the show is Heath Ledger, whose Oscar-winning performance as the Joker has set the standard for movie villains. Jared Leto has huge shoes to fill.

Which is your favourite superhero movie? Let us know in the comments.

You can find all of the films in this post on the brand new musicMagpie Store. You'll even get FREE delivery!

Here are the best superhero movies ever according to critics and audiences (as of September 2018)!

The Dark Knight
Logan
Iron Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
Superman
Captain America: Civil War
The Dark Knight Rises
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Spider-Man 2
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther
Batman Begins
Wonder Woman
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Avengers Assemble
Avengers: Infinity War
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Deadpool
Doctor Strange
The Crow

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