Top Five X of 2001–2025: Superheros

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One of the reasons I started this list is because of Unbreakable, so to discover late in the process that it came out in…2000 was heartbreaking.

So it goes.

But that opens up space in the top five for someone new.

But what counts? Bond/Hunt/Bourne have skills just as superheroey as, say, Batman, just sans cape. What about kung-fu and wuxia movies? So superheroey. What about Scott Pilgrim vs the World?

I decided none of those were options for this list (not that I would have picked a Bond film); in short, I didn’t want to spend time writing an unassailable definition of “superhero” movie, so I largely just went by Do We Talk About It as a Superhero Movie? Even that left some uncertainties. Joker didn’t make the cut, for instance—I just don’t think it’s a superhero movie. Perhaps I’m wrong. You can go to my Letterboxd to see if I haven’t seen a movie (eg Brightburn), but you may not be able to tell if it just didn’t quite count definitionally (eg Pacific Rim), didn’t quite make it into the top five (eg Captain Marvel), or I straight-up didn’t like it (eg Spider-Man: No Way Home).

We’ll get to the overall top five in a minute but first let us recognize that the last quarter-century has been, bar none, the best-ever quarter-century for superhero movies. Tons of volume which means plenty of good ones snuck through.

Therefore, let us first mark three additional top fives for Marvel, DC, and non-marvel/dc movies (ignoring for now any films that made my overall top five), if for no other reason than to recognize the cultural relevancy achieved this century by superhero cinema.

(Although we are still waiting for a worthy [or any] Flaming Carrot or Madman movie.)

Links on numbers go to JustWatch; links on titles go to Wikipedia. 1 = Thutopia; 3 = Thubstack. But you’ll notice most of these watched occurred before the mid-2021 founding of Thubstack.

 

MARVEL

This was the most challenging section of this post as there are so many Marvel movies and quite a few of them hover around the same level of good. (And many of them share the same flaw[s]: uninteresting villain or weak final act.) I see fifteen movies that reasonable could have made this list (and may well have on a different day). Fifteen is triple what I’ve included. I honestly do not know if I have chosen correctly. I’m very torn. Your corrections welcome.

#1: Spider-Man 2 (2004) 1
#2: The Avengers (2012) 1, 1, 1
#3: Black Panther (2018) 1, 1
#4: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) 1, 1
#5: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) 1, 1

 

DC

This bunch includes undoubtedly my most controversial choice. I haven’t seen it since it came out but, brace yourself, I thought it made some excellent decisions. One key one better than the book, even.

#1: Wonder Woman (2017) 1, 1
#2: Batman Begins (2005) 1
#3: The Batman (2022) 1, 2, 1, 2
#4: The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) 1, 1
#5: Watchmen (2009)

 

NON-MARVEL/DC

This group wasn’t as strong as I anticipated. It was less about what to leave out and more about what to put in. We could do better!

#1: Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) 1
#2: Chronicle (2012) 1
#3: Incredibles 2 (2018) 1
#4: Fast Color (2018) 1
#5: Midnight Special (2016) 1

 

OVERALL TOP FIVE SUPERHERO MOVIES OF 2001–2025

#5: Thor: Ragnarok (2017) 1, 1, 1

No other superhero movie this century has brought the joy like Ragnarok (although one wonders, if Edgar Wright had been allowed to finish Ant-Man, it would have matched these heights; it came close as is). Plenty of humor, kickin’ needledrops, amazing visuals, true emotions. Honestly, if this were the best superhero movie of the twenty-first century, we’d still be doing just fine.

#4: Logan (2017) 1

I have seen very few of the X-Men movies (I think just the first two and this one) but Logan is incredible. It proudly displays its debt to Shane and it does Shane proud. Reasonable people can disagree about which is the better movie. Details of its near-future world come to me frequently and its violent meditation on aging and mortality and what we give coming generations is genuinely moving.

#3: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) 1, 1

One of a handful of animated movies ever to shake up the medium and force everyone to realize that more is possible. That enough makes it important. but few movies ever made have the power to put the feeling of becoming a superhero directly into your veins like this one. We are Miles Morales. My only regret is not seeing this movie when I was fourteen.

#2: The Dark Knight (2008) 1

One of Christopher Nolan’s projects seems to be exploring the potential for goodness within humanity. Which is an astonishing thing to say about the movie that gave us the most terrifyingly evil villain in movie-superhero history. The superhero genre is about giving us extremes in order to consider questions of moral importance. At least, that’s floating along under the surface somewhere. But it works best when the hero is compromised and the villain has the momentum. No movie dives deeper into ethical ambiguity or provides as hopeful a solution as The Dark Knight.

#1: Incredibles (2004) 1, 1

It’s the best one. Every team movie is about family. This one is a family. Every superhero has something to prove. This one features that need from past, present, and future perspectives. Every superhero needs thrilling action and real stakes. They also require a full grounding in the mundane so we believe. The Incredibles is the bar all others strive for. It’s the best one. It just is.