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Show lessThe Perfect Order to Watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Movies
Introducing the Spaghetti Order!
Man, I just watched Infinity War and that ending blew my mind. Easily in my top three Marvel movies. That was just—WOW.
Anyways, many months ago, I wrote an article called, "How You Should Show Your Family and Friends Star Wars!" where I just talked about the right order to watch the Star Wars movies. The order I talked about is known as the Machete Order, and it's now a well-known term in the Star Wars community.
Well, it turns out that when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there isn't really an order that people watch the movies with. I mean, some watch in chronological order, some watch in release order, and others just watch all over the place.
But if you ask me, none of these are good ways to watch the Marvel movies. So, that's why I've decided to make my own order to watch the MCU films, since I just marathoned all of them. I introduce to you—the Spaghetti Order.
WAIT! Don't click away from this article! I've coined the term, "Spaghetti Order," because of how much I love spaghetti and because I hope this term catches on with all you Marvel lovers.
So, here is the Spaghetti Order:
- Iron Man (2008)
- The Incredible Hulk (2008)
- Iron Man 2 (2010)
- Thor (2011)
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- The Avengers (2012)
- Iron Man 3 (2013)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Black Panther (2018)
- Doctor Strange (2016)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
THAT is how you watch the Marvel movies. If you haven't yet seen them, copy and paste that order into your notes, and if you've already seen them and want to know why I assembled the order like this, stick around. Minor spoilers are ahead.
So, we start with Iron Man because it's the first one to happen chronologically (besides Captain America: The First Avenger). It's a good idea to start with Stark because in the post-credits scene, we get introduced to Nick Fury, who decides to talk to Stark about the Avenger Initiative.
This then leads to our next Avenger, The Incredible Hulk, who we get to learn about and watch in action before he gets plastic surgery to look like Mark Ruffalo.
And in the after-credits scene of The Incredible Hulk, Tony Stark approaches Thaddeus Ross and informs him of the Avengers Initiative the same way Fury did. Seeing Stark at the end of the film brings us back to Stark's story in Iron Man 2.
Damn, this was a forgettable sequel.
In the after-credits scene of Iron Man 2, Coulson finds Thor's hammer, which, obviously, segues into Thor.
Yes, believe it or not, the after-credits scenes are connecting these movies.
So, in the after-credits scene of Thor, Fury shows Erik the Tesseract, which Erik decides to investigate further, under the control of Loki. We learn more about the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger, and in the after-credits scene of THIS film, we get a post-credits scene that's essentially just a trailer.
And it's a trailer for The Avengers, which is my favorite MCU movie to date.
The after-credits scene is just the Avengers eating shawarma, so where do we go from here? Well, we go to Iron Man 3, as we see the direct effects of Tony Stark's heroics in The Avengers, as he now suffers from panic attacks in a criminally underrated sequel.
After Iron Man 3, we go to Thor: The Dark World to have another adventure with Thor and Loki after the battle in New York.
In the after-credits scene of The Dark World is where we get introduced to The Collector.
The Collector ends up as a character in Guardians of the Galaxy. We then go to Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 because that's the chronological order, and the twist in Vol. 2 ends up having much more impact when you have the original GOTG fresh in your mind.
After that, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a mid-credits scene featuring Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver, who get fully introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And after that, you get Ant-Man, which has a post-credits scene that leads directly into Captain America: Civil War.
The after-credits scene of Civil War consists of Peter Parker in his bedroom, leading us into Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Also, in Civil War, we were introduced not only to Spider-Man, but also to our next superhero, Black Panther.
After Black Panther, you chronologically have Doctor Strange, which has an after-credits scene that leads directly into Thor: Ragnarok.
Then, Thor: Ragnarok has a mid-credits scene where we see Thanos's ship rise into the air, and Avengers: Infinity War takes place right where this scene ends.
During the mid-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp, we see the characters of the film get affected by the events of Infinity War, so you have to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp after Infinity War in order to understand it.
That's essentially what we have now. That is the Spaghetti Order. Now, it will change as more Marvel movies come out, but as of now, I'm proud to have made my own order when it comes to watching MCU films.
And until next time, Wakanda forever.