The 10 Best Non-MCU Marvel Movies, Ranked According To Letterboxd
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is such a well-oiled machine that it's impossible for any of them to fail. To say that Marvel Studios has stumbled upon a formula that satisfies fans and rakes in billions of dollars at the box office is an understatement.
However, as the rights to some Marvel heroes have belonged to other studios in the past, there are other Marvel superhero movies that sit outside of the billion-dollar-grossing cinematic universe that are just as great. And a couple of them are rated even higher than Avengers: Endgame.
10 Blade (1998) - 3.4
The Blade series is one of a kind, as it's an ultra-violent and gory superhero movie, and while there have been movies like that recently, it has been in a light-hearted and self-aware way like in Deadpool. The first movie in the Blade series saw the titular vampire hunter wreaking havoc and massacring villains, and it's total blood-covered entertainment.
While the sequels got considerably worse with each consecutive release, the film can still be watched as a great standalone movie that sometimes leans too hard into '90s movie tropes. But as the movie reboot will be in the MCU and rated PG-13, the 1998 film stands as the only Blade movie that perfectly honors the violent source material.
9 X2 (2003) - 3.4
The first X-Men movie was great at the time, but it certainly doesn't hold up today. The film is full of terrible digital effects and goofy one-liners even by the MCU's standards. It's hard to not get secondhand embarrassment when Storm asks, "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."
But the increase in quality with X2 is like night and day. Between the operatic opening sequence with Nightcrawler breaking into the White House and Yuriko bleeding adamantium, the film is full of the franchise's best scenes. Though it's still far from perfect and the PG-13 rating holds it back when it comes to Wolverine's fight scenes, X2 is a major tentpole movie in the X-Men franchise.
8 Deadpool 2 (2018) - 3.5
Deadpool 2 feels more like a blockbuster superhero flick than its predecessor, as it brings in other major characters played by huge movie stars, and it seemingly creates a whole cinematic universe of its own. Not to mention that it has double the budget of the original, which is clear from the huge set pieces and much bigger action sequences.
However, that might also be why the sequel isn't as beloved as the first movie, as the scruffy look and relatively low budget were all part of its charm. But Deadpool 2 still makes just as great use of its character, and it doubles down on the self-awareness and satire of comic book movies.
7 X-Men: First Class (2011) - 3.5
After two terrible X-Men movies in a row, X-Men: First Class was a huge course correction, and not only was it a return to form, but it was the very best in the series at the time. The franchise's tone changed with First Class, and instead of it following a team of leather-clad mutants, it focuses on the relationship between Erik and Charles and what it was that made them grow apart.
But it's almost as if all the best X-Men movies are flawed masterpieces, as there are always one or two things that make audiences cringe, and First Class is no different. First Class falls into the typical trapping that most origin movies do, and it's a prequel that answers a pointless question that no fan was asking. Magneto and Professor X are given their superhero names by drunken teenagers, and it doesn't remotely fit the tone of the rest of the film.
6 X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) - 3.6
It comes as a surprise that Days of Future Past has such an incrementally higher average score than First Class, as the 2014 movie is the ultimate X-Men film in so many ways. It expertly meshes together the two versions of Professor X and Magneto into a time-traveling epic, it satisfyingly retcons X-Men: The Last Stand out of existence, and it has some of the greatest action sequences ever.
2014 is arguably the most influential year for action movies, and Days of Future Past is part of the reason why. Between the slow-motion Quicksilver scene and the way Blink uses portals to kill the Sentinels, not even the MCU features sequences as inventive as the ones found in Days of Future Past.
5 Spider-Man (2002) - 3.7
Spider-Man has always been a popular superhero, but just like how Tim Burton did for Batman, director Sam Raimi turned the comic book character into a brand. While there have been tons of Spider-Man movies since, some better and some worse than the original, it was the 2002 movie that laid the foundation for every single one of them.
Between the color palette, the unrivaled sense of adrenaline, and the general tone of the film, no Spidey movie would be the same without it. On top of that, Willem Dafoe is having so much villainous fun as the Green Goblin, and it was even better in the newly released Spider-Man: No Way Home.
4 Deadpool (2016) - 3.7
Six years ago, Deadpool was a phenomenal success, as it massively outperformed what the studio expected. The movie had the ingenious trick of pointing out its own flaws and the flaws of superhero movies in general in a satirical way, which did the critics' job while still being celebrated by critics across the world.
It's clear what kind of movie it is from the very opening credits, which are already making profanity-filled jokes and mocking the movie's star. And while not every single joke in the movie lands and some of them seem a little too immature, when a movie has a pace of about 10 laugh-out-loud jokes a minute, it's easily forgivable.
3 Spider-Man 2 (2004) - 3.8
Spider-Man 2 is the perfect superhero sequel. The web-slinger returned with much better digital effects than the rubbery CGI that was in the first movie, the stakes were higher, and the action sequences were way more thrilling too. And the movie even started the trend that sees the superhero temporarily losing their powers, and it still hasn't been done better than in this 2004 movie.
The film also sees the introduction of yet another now-iconic movie villain, Doctor Octopus. If it wasn't for the franchise-spanning No Way Home, Spider-Man 2 would be the highest-rated live-action Spider-Man movie on Letterboxd.
2 Logan (2017) - 4.1
Fans had been waiting for Logan ever since they first saw him as a vagrant in the cold and rural Alberta in 2000's X-Men. To think that 20th Century Fox saw this as a risk is a shock after the fact, as it was one of the most financially successful movies at the box office and is the very best R-rated superhero movie ever.
However, the vast amounts of gore and profanity meant that the studio was greatly limiting who could see it, but the result is one of the most well-crafted superhero movies that was clearly made with passion. Between Wolverine digging his claws deep into enemies' skulls and Professor X losing his mind and dropping F-bombs at every chance he gets, the movie is an entertaining and surprisingly mature swan song for the universe's best character.
1 Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) - 4.4
Of all the Spider-Man movies out there, whether it's Raimi's groundbreaking trilogy, the MCU movies, or even the underrated The Amazing Spider-Man, it's surprising that the best of them all is an animated movie. The 2018 movie is even rated higher than No Way Home.
More than any other movie about the character, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse truly is a work of art, as it achieved things that have never been done before in an animated film. The best example of that is the way it expertly uses different frame rates to depict each Spider-Man variant's sense of speed. And that's exactly why the sequel, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, is one of the most anticipated movies of 2022.