The Marvel Cinematic Universe Is Best Rewatched in Timeline Order

Every time a new Marvel movie — and now Marvel TV show — premieres, the thought pops into your mind: “What if I watched the entire MCU in timeline order?” Even if you just have a passing interest in superheroes, you’ve thought about it. The thought may be fleeting, maybe more of a hypothetical than anything you’d actually plan to do, but there’s an appeal there. It feels more like a challenge than your average movie marathon. As of right now, the MCU consists of 27 feature films, 5 short films (or One-Shots), and 36 episodes across 5 television shows (yes, just 5 TV shows). That’s 5,238 minutes of content. You could binge all 121 episodes of Lost in the same time it would take to binge all of the MCU. Watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe in timeline order is a commitment… and totally worth it.

I can speak from experience, because that’s exactly what my husband and I did during the week between Christmas and New Year’s (and a little past that, too). It was even his idea, and he’s a casual MCU fan! Rewatching the entirety of the MCU in chronological order was not only a blast, but it actually enriched the entire franchise for me. If you’ve ever had the urge to devote a week of your life to this marathon, go for it — and here’s how to do it and why to do it.

First, this is the order we used. It as close as you can get to a proper timeline order without having to jump from movie to movie watching every flashback scene and wreaking havoc on your Disney+ “continue watching” row. This is every movie and TV episode presented in chronological order, going off of when the final battle scene took place.

Now, this order works best if you’re rewatching the franchise. Obviously the post-credits scenes of these films take place all over the timeline and, for example, the post-credits scenes of Captain Marvel, Black Widow, and Ant-Man and the Wasp specifically spoil major plot points in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. So if you’re watching the MCU for the first time, make sure you skip those three until after you’ve seen Endgame.

The timeline does go off the rails a bit thanks to — who else? — the god of mischief. Loki’s show is all about time travel and, ultimately, the multiverse, so it’s impossible to easily place in a timeline. The first scene of Loki comes directly from Endgame, so it should be watched right after that film. But Loki’s Season 1 finale takes place concurrently with events in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and What If…? — and there’s a whole lot of MCU between Endgame and No Way Home.

My solution: Loki actually splits up very, very neatly into three chunks that play like satisfying mini-movies, ending with status quo changes and cliffhangers. Now, What If…? is it’s own big question mark; I’d suggest watching it after Hawkeye since Spider-Man: Far From Home, No Way Home, and the Hawkeye series all have clear points of overlap.

Watching the MCU in this order does one major thing to the entire franchise: it turns the entire Infinity Saga into the story of Steve Rogers. This doesn’t diminish Iron Man’s role; Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain Marvel both feel very much like prequels to the main event. When Robert Downey Jr. shows up in Marvel Movie #3, you follow his journey for four solid hours. But starting with First Avenger gives the very, very last shot of Endgame (you know what it is) an incredibly impactful payoff that’s missing if you watch in release date order.

There’s also a thrilling feeling of momentum watching Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain Marvel, and Iron Man in that order. In terms of plot, First Avenger introduces the Tesseract which then, in the next movie, gives Carol Danvers her superpowers. Nick Fury comes up with a name for his new initiative at the end of Captain Marvel, and the post-credits scene of Iron Man confirms that he’s named it the Avenger Initiative after Carol’s Air Force callsign. Hell, Captain Marvel’s final battle takes place in the Mojave Desert and the very first shot of the next movie, Iron Man, is of Tony Stark riding through a desert in Kunar. The movies flow into each other.

But on a character level? It’s hard to top this order. Yes, you meet Steve Rogers and Carol Danvers first (which, I also gotta point out, fixes the fact that the MCU was overwhelmingly male-centric for really long time). But you also get to spend a lot of consecutive time with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson. Fury debuts in the post-credits scene of First Avenger and then, in the very next film, you get his backstory and are introduced to Agent Coulson. That makes it feel like a big deal when unassuming Phil shows up in Iron Man, and an even bigger deal when Fury appears in Iron Man’s post-credits. It also provides context for Fury’s comment about Stark becoming “part of a bigger universe.” You know exactly what he’s talking about because you just watched him fight aliens alongside one of the most powerful people in the MCU.

Of course the connections don’t stop there. Watching all of these films in this order highlights all of the attention to detail that every filmmaker and actor put into building all of these characters across multiple movies. Captain America is clearly going through a very justifiable depression in The Avengers, a funk that he doesn’t get out of until he takes down Hydra in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Tony Stark’s whole ridiculous Ultron scheme makes a whole lot more sense if you just yesterday watched his near-death experience in The Avengers and his PTSD in Iron Man 3. All of WandaVision feels even more hauntingly intimate if you watch what Wanda and Vision endure in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War so close together.

But the most impressive character arc goes to Natasha Romanoff whose entire journey across 10 years of films aligns if you watch Black Widow immediately after Civil War. The films even feel like two halves of a whole; both films use full-screen titles in the same font!

Black Widow’s flip-flop in Civil War makes total sense when you watch her solo film and see that this character has already had one family torn apart. She can’t stand to see that happen to the Avengers. Even Natasha’s sacrifice in Endgame gets justification from Loki, of all characters. During the interrogation scene in Avengers, Loki asks Natasha how she can ever wipe out that much red from her ledger — and Endgame answers that question and makes that plot point resonate.

The thing is, though, you can apply that level of scrutiny to nearly every character in the MCU, from A-listers like Iron Man all the way down to supporting players like Nebula. Additionally, watching these films in this order in a compressed period of time really makes it crystal clear what each character adds to the universe.

We’ve lived with this sprawling MCU for so long now that it’s easy to forget just what it felt like 14 years ago when the MCU was just Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, and a lot of hope. Watching Rhodey put on the War Machine armor, Falcon take flight, Vision lift Mjolnir — all of these moments now feel like puzzle pieces snapping into place.

Notice how I haven’t really talked about Thanos or Infinity Stones at all? There is fun to be had watching the Stones pop up one by one and tracking where they all end up before being acquired by Thanos, but that’s not what the MCU is about. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is, first and foremost, about the characters.

Maybe that’s hard for some people to see if they’re only popping in when a new movie comes out (which is a totally fine and understandable level of participation with a big movie franchise!). But if you watch the MCU more like how you binge a TV show, where effects follow the cause in swift succession, you really see the level of work that all of these creatives have put into crafting these characters and their journey over the course of a decade. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is absolutely massive, borderline unwieldy, and a whole lot of content to take in — and I highly recommend that you rise to this fundamentally ridiculous challenge.

Stream Captain America: The First Avenger on Disney+