What order to watch Marvel Cinematic Universe
The MCU was built in release order but doesn't play in one: Captain America starts in 1943, Captain Marvel in 1995, and Endgame ends by splitting the timeline into branches the later films keep wandering between. Thirty-seven films in any single order also means sitting through several that carry nothing forward.
If you are watching it for the first time
Roughly half the MCU is setup for the two Avengers films that close it, and the other half is homework. This path keeps every film that changes what a later film means and drops the ones that only introduce someone you'd meet again anyway. It also leaves out the Disney+ series, which means Multiverse of Madness picks Wanda up mid-arc — that is the one real seam in the whole route.
Start here
- Iron Man (2008) — Sets the tone the next decade copies, and ends with the first post-credits scene that promises a shared universe. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — The 1943 half of the story: it plants the Tesseract, the serum, and the man every later film keeps measuring itself against. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Avengers (2012) — The first film that assumes you watched the others, and the template every crossover since has followed. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
The board gets bigger
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — Opens the cosmic side of the map with no Avengers in it, and turns the Infinity Stones from a tease into a working plot device. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) — Deletes S.H.I.E.L.D., which quietly invalidates the premise of everything before it. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) — Mostly a machine for producing Vision and Wanda, and you need both later. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man (2015) — Introduces the Quantum Realm, which is the mechanism Endgame runs on. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
The team breaks
- Captain America: Civil War (2016) — Splits the Avengers along a line that stays split until the last twenty minutes of Endgame. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Doctor Strange (2016) — Adds magic and the Time Stone, and installs the one character who can see how bad the next few years get. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017) — Destroys Asgard and strands the survivors on a ship in deep space, which is where Infinity War opens. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Panther (2018) — Builds Wakanda into the only place on Earth that can host a fight at the scale Infinity War needs. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
The two-part ending
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — The hinge: the villain wins, and half of everyone stays gone for five years of story time. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Endgame (2019) — Reverses the snap by splintering the timeline into branches nobody in the film tidies up — every multiverse story after this is downstream of that. [The Time Heist Splinters]
After the ending
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) — The first film to treat other universes as places you can pull people out of, permanently. [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) — Turns the multiverse into geography and names incursions as the thing that kills universes. It collects Wanda mid-arc from a series this route skips, so expect one unexplained jump in her. [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — Sets out the rules plainly — the TVA, pruned timelines, and universes that die when their anchor being does. [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- Thunderbolts* (2025) — The current Earth-616 team, assembled from people the earlier films discarded. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) — A separate universe with its own 1960s and no shared history with anything above, until the ending reaches across. [Earth-828: First Steps]
Only if you're staying
- Captain Marvel (2019) — A 1995 origin, and the reason Fury's pager means anything at the end of Infinity War. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man 3 (2013) — Tony alone with the aftermath of The Avengers. Nothing in it is required; it's still the best read on him. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) — Matters for one thing: Nebula stops being a henchman, which is what makes her useful in Endgame. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) — Peter's first solo film. Skippable alone, load-bearing if you intend to watch the other two. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) — Ends with the snap catching Scott mid-experiment — the exact position Endgame finds him in. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Widow (2021) — Fills the gap after Civil War and introduces Yelena, who ends up leading Thunderbolts*. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) — Post-Endgame cleanup, plus the identity reveal that No Way Home spends its first act undoing. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) — A self-contained corner that promotes the Ten Rings from a throwaway in Iron Man into a real power. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Eternals (2021) — Rewrites the planet's deep history and then barely touches anything else — the largest retcon with the smallest consequences so far. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) — Introduces Kang and the council standing behind him, which is the frame the multiverse arc hangs on. [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) — Closes that team out properly. No timeline consequences, a real ending. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: Brave New World (2025) — Sam as Captain America, and it converts a loose end from The Incredible Hulk into a sitting president. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
Release order
Straight release order, 2008 to 2025. It is how the films were built and how each one assumes you saw the last, but it puts a 1943 origin fifth and a 1995 origin twenty-first.
- Iron Man (2008) — Where it starts, and the first post-credits scene to promise a shared universe. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Incredible Hulk (2008) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man 2 (2010) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor (2011) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — Released fifth, set first — the whole film happens seventy years before the one either side of it. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Avengers (2012) — First crossover. From here on, every film assumes the others. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man 3 (2013) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor: The Dark World (2013) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) — Collapses S.H.I.E.L.D. and changes what every earlier film was about. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — Opens a second front in space that doesn't touch Earth for another four years. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man (2015) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: Civil War (2016) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Doctor Strange (2016) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Panther (2018) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — The hinge — it ends with the villain having won and stays that way for a year. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain Marvel (2019) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Endgame (2019) — Time travel creates branch timelines the franchise never goes back and closes. [The Time Heist Splinters]
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Widow (2021) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Eternals (2021) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) — Opens the multiverse for real, using two decades of films made outside this one. [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Marvels (2023) [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — Brings in the TVA and the pruned-universe rules, and folds a rival studio's twenty-four years of films into the same structure. [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- Captain America: Brave New World (2025) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thunderbolts* (2025) [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) — A different universe, cold-started with its own history and no cast in common. [Earth-828: First Steps]
Chronological order
In-story order. It reads as one clean line until Endgame's time heist, after which it stops being a line at all — Deadpool & Wolverine happens partly outside time, and First Steps happens in another universe, so both sit where they make sense rather than where a calendar would put them.
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — Set 1943 – 1945 — The chronological start, and the last event on this list for another fifty years. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain Marvel (2019) — Set 1995 — Sits alone in the 1990s and quietly explains why Fury reaches for a pager decades later. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man (2008) — Set 2010 — The modern era begins here, and runs as one unbroken line until Endgame. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Incredible Hulk (2008) — Set 2011 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man 2 (2010) — Set 2011 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor (2011) — Set 2011 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Avengers (2012) — Set 2012 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Iron Man 3 (2013) — Set 2012 – 2013 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor: The Dark World (2013) — Set 2013 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) — Set 2014 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — Set 2014 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) — Set 2014 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) — Set 2015 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man (2015) — Set 2015 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: Civil War (2016) — Set 2016 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Widow (2021) — Set 2016 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Panther (2018) — Set 2016 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) — Set 2016 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Doctor Strange (2016) — Set 2016 – 2017 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017) — Set 2017 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) — Set 2018 — Overlaps Infinity War almost exactly, and its last scene is the same moment seen from a different room. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — Set 2018 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Avengers: Endgame (2019) — Set 2018 – 2023 — Jumps five years forward mid-film, then travels back into six earlier films and leaves branch timelines behind it. [The Time Heist Splinters]
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) — Set 2024 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Eternals (2021) — Set 5000 BC – 2024 — Reaches back seven thousand years while its present sits here, so it fits badly wherever you put it. [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) — Set 2024 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) — Set 2024 — The point where chronology stops being a single line and other universes start arriving in this one. [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — Set 2024, and outside time — Half of it happens somewhere the calendar doesn't apply — the TVA sits outside the timeline it polices. [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) — Set 2025 [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) — Set 2025 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) — Set 2025 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) — Set 2026 [The TVA & the Unbound Multiverse]
- The Marvels (2023) — Set 2026 — Ends by dropping a character into a neighbouring universe and leaving her there. [Incursions & Neighbouring Universes]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) — Set 2026 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Captain America: Brave New World (2025) — Set 2027 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- Thunderbolts* (2025) — Set 2027 [The Sacred Timeline (Earth-616)]
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) — Set 1964, Earth-828 — Its 1964 is not this timeline's 1964, so it goes last rather than second. [Earth-828: First Steps]
The Marvel Cinematic Universe branch map · All ReelOrder timeline maps