All 14 X-Men Movies Ranked
(Photo by 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved./courtesy Everett Collection. X-MEN.)
The latest: X-Men, the movie that started the superhero era (well, if you don’t count Superman, or Batman, or Blade, or Spider-Man), celebrates its 25th anniversary!
In the world of superhero movies post–Batman & Robin implosion, Spider-Man showed they could still be fun, Batman Begins demonstrated gravitas, and Blade got its cut with R-rated gruesomeness. Meanwhile, the X-Men proved the ensemble superhero movie could work: Just take off the yellow spandex, add some millennium-era leather, and retain the franchise’s outsider allegories. Oh, and capture some lightning-in-a-bottle casting with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. A bit tall to play Wolvy, but he had the chops (and literally, the muttonchops).
The relentless X2: X-Men United brought true action to the series, before hitting the skids with The Last Stand and the writer’s strike-afflicted X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Since then, the X-Men franchise has spread out in myriad ways, with highlights including adapting the time-splitting classic Days of Future Past, the Western-inflected Logan (nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar!), and introducing the meta Merc With A Mouth Deadpool into the mix.
93%
91%
90%
91%
86%
87%
85%
90%
85%
85%
83%
85%
82%
83%
71%
69%
57%
61%
56%
61%
47%
65%
37%
58%
36%
55%
22%
64%
