MCU timeline: How to watch the Marvel movies in order

Do you prefer to watch all the films as they were originally released, starting with Iron Man and finishing with Spider-Man? Or do you want to watch the events as they would have happened in-universe and prefer the Marvel chronological order?

Do you watch all the Marvel movies, or just watch the best ones and get ready for Doomsday as quickly as possible?

You don’t have to decide right now. Check out our guide on how to watch Marvel movies in order, and see which you like best.

What should you watch before Avengers: Doomsday?

Avengers: Doomsday is setting itself up to be a monumental crossover event, combining characters and storylines from at least three separate universes... maybe four or more if Deadpool shows up.

If you tried to watch everything Marvel had produced, that's well over 100 hours of movies and TV shows–and that's not even counting all the original X-Men movies.

Avengers: Doomsday is due for release on 18 December 2026... that might not be enough time to rewatch everything!

So if you want to refresh your memory and do a slightly quicker catch-up before then, here's a list of essential Marvel movies that should cover everything you need.

The essential Avengers: Doomsday watchlist

If you only have time for the key films and shows, watch these in order:

1. The Avengers

- The first proper MCU team-up, and still the clearest introduction to how the Avengers work together.

- It also establishes Loki, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and the original Avengers dynamic.

2. Avengers: Age of Ultron

- Important for understanding the creation of Vision, the rise of Wanda Maximoff, and some of the tensions that later split the Avengers.

3. Captain America: Civil War

- This is where the Avengers fracture.

- It also introduces Black Panther and Spider-Man into the wider Avengers story.

4. Doctor Strange

- Introduces Doctor Strange, the Masters of the Mystic Arts and the idea that the MCU is bigger than Earth-based superheroes.

5. Avengers: Infinity War

- The beginning of the MCU’s biggest crossover so far.

- Essential viewing before any future Avengers team-up.

6. Avengers: Endgame

- The end of the Infinity Saga, and likely the most important film to revisit before Doomsday.

- It explains where the original Avengers end up and leaves the MCU with a very different team landscape.

7. Loki season 1

- The most important Disney Plus series for understanding the MCU’s multiverse.

- It introduces the TVA and sets up the idea of branching timelines.

8. Loki season 2

- Continues the TVA and multiverse story.

- If Doomsday deals with collapsing realities or characters from different universes, this is likely to be one of the most useful shows to have seen.

9. Spider-Man: No Way Home

- The MCU’s clearest big-screen multiverse story so far.

- It shows what happens when characters from different Spider-Man universes collide.

10. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

- Expands the MCU’s multiverse rules and introduces incursions.

- Useful context if Doomsday leans into universe-hopping or worlds colliding.

11. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

- While I'm hesitant to recommend anyone watch this film, let alone rewatch it, it does a lot of heavy lifting around Kang, variants and the Quantum Realm.

- Even if Doomsday has shifted focus toward Doctor Doom, this still helps explain the road Marvel was building through the Multiverse Saga.

12. Deadpool & Wolverine

- Useful if Doomsday pulls more directly from the Fox X-Men universe.

- It also helps bridge the gap between older Marvel films and the current MCU multiverse.

13. Captain America: Brave New World

- Helps establish the current state of Earth-based heroes after Endgame.

- Worth watching for Sam Wilson’s role as Captain America before another Avengers-level event.

14. Thunderbolts

- Introduces the MCU’s new antihero team dynamic.

- Important if the next Avengers film brings together a messier, less traditional team of heroes.

- Plus, Florence Pugh really is the best thing to happen to the MCU in years, so more time with her on screen is always better.

15. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

- This is where we get our first proper Doom teaser, and since Doom is a Fantastic Four character, they're sure to play a major role.

- If you’re short on time, this is one of the newer films to prioritise.

If you only watch five things before Doomsday

If that list still feels too long, this is the absolute minimum catch-up route:

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: Civil War
3. Avengers: Infinity War
4. Avengers: Endgame
5. Loki seasons 1 and 2

That won’t cover every character, but it gives you the clearest route through the Avengers story and the MCU’s multiverse setup.

Optional extras if you want the full multiverse picture

Since this is a multiverse crossover event, I would suggest, if you haven't seen them, to at least try to watch some of the other

If you want to understand more of the characters and universes that could feed into Doomsday, these are worth adding:

• X-Men, X2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past — as an X-Men fan I feel like you'll be missing out if you haven't watched these before Doomsday. The stakes won't be as high. (But please don't watch X3 or Dark Phoenix, you'll never watch any Marvel film again).
• WandaVision— useful before Multiverse of Madness and for understanding Wanda’s post-Endgame story. Plus, it's the best thing Marvel TV has ever done.

My advice would actually be to watch the core films and these extras if you're short on time.

Then at least you've seen the films that have made the MCU what they are... before everything changes!