Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Superhero Movies of All Time

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From the campy to the grimdark, the dark knights of Gotham City to the defenders of Wakanda — these are the best superhero films to ever pow, zap and websling to a theater near you.

When Action Comics No. 1 hit newsstands in June of 1938 and readers met Krypton’s number-one-son Superman, it was a big-bang event that kicked off what would become the Great American Superhero Obsession. Naturally, the movies wanted in on this craze as well. Thus, a few years later, serials like The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), Batman (1943) and Captain America (1944) became matinee staples; even the Man of Steel would get his own 15-part adventure in 1948. Later, these comic-book characters would get co-opted by this newfangled invention called “television,” and you could tune in watch George Reeves move faster than a speeding bullet, Adam West and Burt Ward zap-blam-pow their way through a who’s-who of Bat-villains and Bill Bixby go from mild-mannered drifter to a raging green hulk. Don’t even get us started on Saturday morning cartoons.

By the time superheroes started making their way back to the big screen in the late 1970s and the 1980s, these defenders of truth and justice had become universally recognized icons — you didn’t have to be a comic-book reader to know what that black-and-yellow bat insignia meant, or understand that a red mask with white eyes and a web design equaled your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. And when the one-two punch of the first X-Men movie and Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man hit theaters within a few years of each other, the stage was set for the first part of the 21st century to give birth to what’s now a Golden Age of Superhero Movies.

So, after having navigated several cinematic universes and traveled through a host of multiverses, fought infinity wars and played endgames, rode shotgun with webslingers and prowled alongside dark knights and hung with so many supergroups that we’ve practically become charter members, we’ve ranked the top 50 superhero movies of all time. From the campy to the grimdark, the late nights in Gotham City to the sunrises in Wakanda, these are the films that both define the genre and have helped turn the thrill of watching comic-book characters leap on to the screen into a multiplex lingua franca. --Rolling Stone

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  1. 1 new

    Black Panther

    2018, in 9 top lists Check
  2. 2 new

    Spider-Man 2

    2004, in 7 top lists Check
  3. 3 new

    Logan

    2017, in 9 top lists Check
  4. 4 new

    Avengers: Endgame

    2019, in 8 top lists Check
  5. 5 new

    Superman

    1978, in 11 top lists Check
  6. 6 new

    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

    2018, in 21 top lists Check
  7. 7 new

    The Dark Knight

    2008, in 27 top lists Check
  8. 8 new

    Thor: Ragnarok

    2017, in 3 top lists Check
  9. 9 new

    Wonder Woman

    2017, in 4 top lists Check
  10. 10 new

    The Incredibles

    2004, in 13 top lists Check
  11. 11 new

    Iron Man

    2008, in 7 top lists Check
  12. 12 new

    Spider-Man: Homecoming

    2017, in 3 top lists Check
  13. 13 new

    X-Men: Days of Future Past

    2014, in 3 top lists Check
  14. 14 new

    Spider-Man

    2002, in 7 top lists Check
  15. 15 new

    Guardians of the Galaxy

    2014, in 3 top lists Check
  16. 16 new

    Avengers: Infinity War

    2018, in 8 top lists Check
  17. 17 new

    X2

    2003 — a.k.a. X2: X-Men United, in 5 top lists Check
  18. 18 new

    Captain America: The Winter Soldier

    2014, in 3 top lists Check
  19. 19 new

    Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

    1993, in 1 top list Check
  20. 20 new

    Superman II

    1980, in 3 top lists Check
  21. 21 new

    Doctor Strange

    2016, in 2 top lists Check
  22. 22 new

    RoboCop

    1987, in 15 top lists Check
  23. 23 new

    Deadpool

    2016, in 3 top lists Check
  24. 24 new

    Batman Returns

    1992, in 8 top lists Check
  25. 25 new

    The Rocketeer

    1991, in 0 top lists Check
  26. 26 new

    Darkman

    1990, in 2 top lists Check
  27. 27 new

    Hellboy

    2004, in 1 top list Check
  28. 28 new

    Batman Begins

    2005, in 11 top lists Check
  29. 29 new

    The Crow

    1994, in 4 top lists Check
  30. 30 new

    Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

    2021, in 2 top lists
    Check
  31. 31 new

    V for Vendetta

    2005, in 10 top lists Check
  32. 32 new

    Unbreakable

    2000, in 6 top lists Check
  33. 33 new

    Blade II

    2002, in 2 top lists Check
  34. 34 new

    The Suicide Squad

    2021, in 0 top lists
    Check
  35. 35 new

    Ant-Man

    2015, in 2 top lists Check
  36. 36 new

    Tank Girl

    1995, in 2 top lists Check
  37. 37 new

    The Batman

    2022, in 3 top lists Check
  38. 38 new

    Captain America: The First Avenger

    2011, in 2 top lists Check
  39. 39 new

    Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

    2022, in 1 top list
    Check
  40. 40 new

    The Dark Knight Rises

    2012, in 7 top lists Check
  41. 41 new

    The Avengers

    2012, in 7 top lists Check
  42. 42 new

    The Lego Batman Movie

    2017, in 2 top lists Check
  43. 43 new

    Thor

    2011, in 2 top lists Check
  44. 44 new

    Batman: The Movie

    1966, in 0 top lists Check
  45. 45 new

    The Old Guard

    2020, in 0 top lists
    Check
  46. 46 new

    Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

    2010, in 6 top lists Check
  47. 47 new

    Zhong guo chao ren

    1975 — a.k.a. Infra-Man, in 1 top list Check
  48. 48 new

    Megamind

    2010, in 2 top lists Check
  49. 49 new

    Ghost Rider

    2007, in 2 top lists Check
  50. 50 new

    Zack Snyder's Justice League

    2021, in 1 top list
    Check
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Last updated on Jun 30, 2022; source