Across over a decade and a frankly stupid number of films, TV shows, web series, and one-shots, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has sprawled in size, and even for the most ardent Marvel fans it’s a serious challenge to a) actually watch everything, and b) keep your head around the timeline.
With that in mind, we’ve done our best to put together a chronological timeline of the Marvel movies, shows, and more, so you know which order to watch the Marvel movies in. For the moment, watching them in chronological order arguably makes more sense than watching in the jumbled release date order. We have a similar piece for watching the Star Wars movies and shows in order.
There are a couple of other disclaimers. First up, the timeline gets more and more complex as it goes on, so it gets harder to order the films perfectly. For example, Doctor Strange begins just before Captain America: Civil War, but takes a time jump and ends way after it, while Black Panther kicks off shortly after Civil War, but the whole story likely plays out before the bulk of Doctor Strange, making it trickier to say which to watch first.
It doesn’t help that Marvel also sort of broke its own timeline. There are a few little inconsistencies dotted around the place, but the most egregious is Spider-Man: Homecoming, which claims to take place eight years after the New York attack in the first Avengers. That would set the film in 2020 – two years after 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
It’s a pretty minor gaffe in the scheme of things, but it’s a reminder not to take the MCU’s chronological timeline too seriously – even Marvel itself can’t keep it all straight, so as long as you watch things in about the right order you’ll be fine.
Oh, and if you want the visual cliff notes, Marvel has now released every single post-credit scene up to Endgame (including Captain Marvel’s) on order in one giant Twitter thread, so you can revisit every little tease as they built the MCU up.
Marvel has since tried to fix that by issue its own official timeline for the movies in the book Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years, which does its best to give specific years for when the various films are set, and particularly rejigging Homecoming’s place in the timeline:
- 1943-1945: Captain America: The First Avenger
- 1995: Captain Marvel
- 2010: Iron Man
- 2011: Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor
- 2012: The Avengers, Iron Man 3
- 2013: Thor: The Dark World
- 2014: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man
- 2016: Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming
- 2016/2017: Doctor Strange
- 2017: Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man & the Wasp
So without further ado, here’s our chronological ordering of the Marvel film universe as it stands right now, taking into account Marvel’s official timeline. The films are in italics, to make it easier if you only care about them and aren’t fussed about keeping the TV shows straight too.
We’ve also tried our best to split everything up into Marvel’s ‘phases’, but there are some grey areas: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was made within Phase Three, but is set almost immediately after its predecessor, Captain Marvel was one of the final Phase Three films but is set before most of Phase One, and some of the TV shows sit awkwardly between the different movie phases.
You can watch the majority of the films and shows by signing up for Disney Plus, with the exception of the two Spider-Man films, the Netflix Marvel shows and a few other titles – these are marked with an asterisk.
Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline
Phase One (mostly)
Captain America: The First Avenger
Agent Carter (seasons one and two)
Agent Carter (one-shot — Iron Man 3 DVD/Blu-ray)*
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk*
The Consultant (one-shot — Thor DVD/Blu-ray)*
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor’s Hammer (one-shot — Captain America: The First Avenger DVD/Blu-ray)*
Thor
The Avengers (Avengers: Assemble in the UK)
Phase Two (mostly)
Item 47 (one-shot — Avengers DVD/Blu-ray)*
Iron Man 3
All Hail the King (one-shot – Thor: The Dark World DVD/Blu-ray)*
Agents of Shield (season one: episodes 1 — 7)
Thor: The Dark World
Agents of Shield (season one: episodes 8 — 16)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Agents of Shield (season one: episodes 17 — 22)
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Daredevil (season one)*
Agents of Shield (season two: episodes 1 — 19)
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Agents of Shield (season two: episodes 20 — 22)
Ant-Man
Jessica Jones (season one)*
Daredevil (season two)*
Agents of Shield (season three: episodes 1 — 19)
Phase Three
Captain America: Civil War
Agents of Shield (season three: episodes 20 — 22)
Luke Cage (season one)*
Spider-Man: Homecoming*
Agents of Shield (season four: episodes 1 — 8)
Doctor Strange
Agents of Shield: Slingshot (web series)*
Agents of Shield (season four: episodes 9 — 22)
Iron Fist (season one)*
The Defenders (season one)*
Inhumans (season one)
The Punisher (season one)*
Runaways (season one and two)
Jessica Jones (season two)*
Cloak and Dagger (season one)*
Luke Cage (season two)*
Iron Fist (season two)*
Daredevil (season three)*
The Punisher (season two)*
Jessica Jones (season three)*
Cloak and Dagger (season two)*
Agents of Shield (season five, episodes 1 — 19)
Thor: Ragnarok
Agents of Shield (season five, episodes 20 – 22)
Agents of Shield (season six)*
Spider-Man: Far From Home*
Via Techadvisor