In March 2020, the world began to lock down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The lock down orders were met with mixed emotions. Some people responded, “Stay home? No problem; I’ve trained for this all my life.” Others reluctantly stayed home, believing this was best for the health of their loved ones and friends. They may have gone a bit stir crazy, but they found ways to cope. My wife and I already had remote jobs and worked at home, so we were somewhat used to the routine. But now, we couldn’t leave the house. No visits with the family, no hugs for the grandchildren, no eating out, no meeting with friends, no contact with anyone. Because we were over 60, our daughter even insisted that we not even do our own grocery shopping, so she shopped for us during the early days of the lock down.
What we decided to do was binge watch a lot of TV shows and movie series. We watched all 6 seasons of Lost, 3 seasons of 24, Marvel’s Agents of Shield, Star Trek movies, and Star Wars movies. In 2019, we had watched Avengers: Endgame, an epic ending to the story line the MCU had given us over several years and 22 movies. The first released movie was Iron Man in 2008. In the following years, we had watched most of the movies, but a lot of information was lost from our memories as the new movies unfolded. How did everything fit together? When did we first learn about Thanos? What about the infinity stones? Did they show up in earlier movies? Which ones? So we decided to watch all the Marvel Avengers movies – in chronological order!
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What is the Avengers movies chronological order? With the new Black Panther movie coming out in November 2022, perhaps you want to get a refresher of the timeline. By watching the movies in chronological order rather than release date, you really get a better grasp of the story. Iron Man was the first movie that came out in 2008, but that is not the place to begin Our viewing with start with Captain America: The First Avenger, which was released in 2011, but the movie takes place in the 1940s.
MCU Movies have 6 Phases
Before we look at the movies chronological order, let’s look at all the movies by release date. MCU movie release is in several phases. The first three phases culminate with Avengers: Endgame in Phase 3. Phase 4 is the Multiverse Saga that is essentially post-Thanos blip and ends with the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (November 2022). Phases 5 and 6 are future releases beginning in 2023.
You will notice that the list below only contains the theatrical releases. Since Endgame, there have been several series released on Disney Plus that take place in different spots of the timeline. I’ll talk about those titles in another blog. Let’s focus on the movies for now.
- The Infinity Saga: Phase One (2008-2012)
Iron Man (May 2, 2008)
The Incredible Hulk (June 13, 2008)
Iron Man 2 (May 7, 2010)
Thor (May 6, 2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (July 22, 2011)
Marvel’s The Avengers (May 4, 2012) - Phase Two (2013-2015)
Iron Man 3 (May 3, 2013)
Thor: The Dark World (November 8, 2013)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (August 1, 2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1, 2015)
Ant-Man (July 17, 2015) - Phase Three (2016-2019)
Captain America: Civil War (Mat 6, 2016)
Doctor Strange (November 4, 2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5, 2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7, 2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (November 3, 2017)
Black Panther (February 16, 2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (April 27, 2018)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6, 2018)
Captain Marvel (March 8, 2019)
Avengers: Endgame (April 26, 2019)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2, 2019) - The Multiverse Saga: Phase Four (2021-2022)
Black Widow (July 9, 2021)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3, 2021)
Eternals (November 5, 2021)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (December 17, 2021)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6, 2021)
Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8, 2022)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (November 11, 2022) - Phase Five (2023-2024)
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (February 17, 2023)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5, 2023)
The Marvels (July 28, 2023)
Captain America: New World Order (May 3, 2024)
Thunderbolts (July 26, 2024)
Blade (September 6, 2024) - Phase Six (2024-2026)
Deadpool 3 (November 8, 2024)
Fantastic Four (February 14, 2025)
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (May 2, 2025)
Avengers: Secret Wars (May 1, 2026)
If you are new to Marvel movies and want to dig in, this list may be the easiest for you to digest, rather than trying to stream the movies in chronological order.
Chronological Order Is the Best
To really get a good grasp of the major story line and all the back stories of the heroes, you need to watch the movies in chronological order. For the beginner, chronological order may look a bit confusing. Sometimes, the timeline gets a bit blurry within the movies. Take the first movie for example. Captain America: The First Avenger mostly takes place in the 1940s, but after being rescued from a frozen state, Steve Rogers awakens in the 21st century – 2011 to be exact, which is after the events of the first Iron Man movie. 
The list below is the order of movies in the first 3 phases, except for Black Widow. The movie is considered Phase 4, but her backstory takes places after Captain America: Civil War, while she is on the run for breaking the Sukovia Accords.
The year at the end of each title is when the events take place.
- Captain America: The First Avenger (1942)
- Captain Marvel (1995)
- Iron Man (2010)
- Iron Man 2 (2011)
- The Incredible Hulk (2011)
- Thor (2011)
- The Avengers (2012)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Iron Man 3 (2012)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Black Widow (2016, excluding post-credits scene)
- Black Panther (2016)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2016)
- Doctor Strange (2016-2017)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2017)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2017)
- Avengers: Endgame (2017-2022)
From here, the movie order follows the release date
While the MCU timeline is never easy to follow, the movie releases after Endgame are pretty much in chronological order. Spider-Man: Far From Home takes place in 2023 after the “blipped” population is returned in Endgame. Here is the list of the Phase 4 movies in chronological order (including Far From Home) with the year their story unfolds.
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2023)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2023)
- Eternals (2023, excluding flashbacks)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2024)
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2025)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2026)
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2026)
Phase 4 ends with the latest release Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. My wife and I watched this on opening night, and we both concluded that it was an exciting addition to the story. Don’t miss this one in the theater!
There’s more than one way to watch the movies…
…and neither is wrong! You can pick up the story lines no matter which you choose, but if you want to mix it up, I recommend the chronological way. I hope you have a MARVELous viewing experience.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
This is great to find this list with the chronological order of the Avenger movies. From looking at the list, I can see that there are several that I have missed. In order not to miss out on any happenings that might make it difficult to follow, I can see that it will be best to watch them in chronological order.
And with the Christmas holidays coming up, there is no better way to have movie nights with the family, than watching the Avengers movies.
I know your family will enjoy watching them in chronological order. I’m glad that you enjoyed my article. I hope you come by to visit again. Check out my articles on Who Was the First Marvel Super Hero? Who Was the First Avenger? and When Did Iron Man First Appear?
Although I am not a follower of superheroes, I found your site fascinating! I appreciate the knowledge that you have about your subject, and your writing style keeps the reader interested. I would encourage you to use a few more pictures throughout your writings. Because of the vastness of your knowledge and the information that you were providing, it seems that the text is overwhelming and I think more graphics would make the reader appreciate what you’re talking about on your pages. It would kind of break up the text and give the eyes something else to focus on to get the full meaning of what you were writing about. I remember when I was adding the pictures or graphics to my site, I had to review the training recording a few times to understand how the formatting of the pictures should be so that they would appear correctly on the pages.
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Thank you for your kind words and critique of my site. I will definitely consider adding more pictures to the site. I hope you come back and visit again.
This is a nice list to have when you are new, like me!
I was looking for a way to start watching these movies, but they are so many I didn’t know where to start. It keeps getting bigger and bigger, so I have to start now if I want to come back with the group, hahaha
Thank to you it will be so much more easy now.
I’m glad to be of help! I think you will have a lot of fun. Of course, since these big movies, Marvel has had added so much more to the timeline. I chose to focus just on these movies that led up to Endgame. I hope to expand on this list in future posts. I hope you come back and check out some more of my content.
I am a huge fan of stan lee and marvel and i like the fact that you put them in order. most people don’t have the time to put them in order. They are so much better to watch in order. I haven’t watched the new ones but I will. the pandemic created some new adventures it nice to see someone who capitalized on that. I will continue to watch your site for more insite.
I’m glad you enjoyed this article about all the movies. It definitely was fun to watch them in chronological order. It helped us to see the progression of the importance of the infinity stones. I do have a few other posts that might interest you:
Who was the first Marvel super hero?
Who was the first Avenger?
When did Iron Man first appear?
I hope you continue to enjoy my content.
It’s great to be reading another article on your website, Scott! I loved going through your list and seeing which movies I had watched. While doing so, however, was there a small mistake made while writing this article? I can’t seem to find the first two Iron Man movies and some other ones under “The Infinity Saga: Phase One (2008-2012)” in your movies by release date list. Or maybe I’m missing something?
Hi Kevin – I’m happy that you got to read another post. And thank you so much for pointing out the error. I do not know what happened. Somehow Phase 4 got moved up to where Phase I movies are supposed to be. I will definitely fix this!