Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is massive, and it’s easy to see how keeping track of the overarching story can become a little complicated. Even if you’ve seen every movie, the timeline can get a little messy when watching them in chronological order as what happens in one film can impact events depicted in another. That’s especially true for the first few years of the MCU, which was built up film by film with the overarching story woven into each.
As the MCU has expanded, it’s become increasingly difficult to keep up with the exact timeline. This is mostly due to the way some of the films take place in different time periods, while others are incredibly intertwined with each other. That said, the MCU is still one of the most impressive superhero franchises in history, and it’s well worth watching all the movies, TV shows and One-Shot shorts.
For fans who are just starting out, however, it can be tricky to determine the correct order to watch. the go-to place for easy-to-follow guides in order to watch in release order, which will give you an approximate idea of the MCU timeline.
The Correct Order of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
This isn’t an absolute, as some films do have a bit of ambiguity in them, but it’s the best way to go about things for now. It also makes it easier to catch all of the post-credit scenes that tease upcoming movies and TV shows – although, for now at least, it’s hard to predict what Marvel will include in the next few years.
If you want to start with the earliest MCU movie, then that would be 2010’s Captain America: The First Avenger. It’s a World War II-set movie that introduces us to Steve Rogers and his fight against HYDRA masquerading as Nazis. From there, you can jump to Iron Man, which is the film that kicks off the current MCU and stars RDJ as Tony Stark. From there, you can hit Thor and his hammer-wielding antics in the second film and then hit The Avengers, which is where we meet many of the heroes that will continue to assemble in future movies.
You can then move on to Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel, Vol. 2, which take place in 2014, as well as Black Panther and Doctor Strange (which both have a lot of ambiguity around them). The Marvel Netflix series (Luke Cage, Iron Fist and She-Hulk) all take place in 2016, and they’re all linked to the Civil War events that triggered the Snap. The upcoming third season of Runaways also muddies the waters slightly by adding a time skip, though it still works within the overall narrative.
As for the 2021 movies, we can slot Black Widow and No Way Home between those two, as they’re both set a year after the events of Ragnarok. Moon Knight could fit in between them as its events are a direct consequence of what happened in Spider-Man: Far From Home, while the upcoming She-Hulk and The Eternals both work around Shang-Chi.