The 25 Best Superhero Movies Of All Time - Page 3 of 4

iron-man-robert-downey-jr-shaun-toub13 “Iron Man” (2008)
The film that really kicked off Marvel’s billion-dollar mega-franchise, and it’s a rarity among these movies in that it works because of, essentially, one element alone: Robert Downey Jr. That’s not to say that the other elements are disastrous: the script might be a beat-by-beat reconstruction of “Batman Begins,” but it does its job, director Jon Favreau keeps the tone bouncy without losing the stakes, and it even managed to make Gwyneth Paltrow a winning screen presence for the first time in a long while. But really, this is the Downey Jr. show, and it’s really a remarkable tour-de-force of a performance that rightly relaunched the once-troubled actor to being the biggest, and best paid movie star on the planet. His improv-y comic energy lets us warm to Tony Stark even when he’s at his most jackass-like, but he lends the character a vulnerability and, when it matters, a seriousness that made him an instant iconic. More than any of its rivals, Marvel (mostly) understand that the most special effect you can ask for is an actor that people want to pay to see, and it’s hard not to feel that their enormous success simply wouldn’t have happened without that gamble on Downey Jr. to begin with.

hellboy-2-golden-army-ron-perlman12. “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (2008)
The third and easily best of Guillermo Del Toro’s superhero trilogy, “Hellboy II” probably never should have existed at all. The slightly weakly scripted first film to star Ron Perlman as the blood-red-colored demon crimefighter (based on Mike Mignola’s comic book) had a lot of charm, but felt like Del Toro at half his powers, and took a faintly disappointing and unprofitable $100 million worldwide. But the Oscar-winning success of “Pan’s Labyrinth” let Del Toro write his own checks for a while, and so the sequel, which sees Hellboy and the BPRD take on a murderous fairy prince, ended up happening at a different studio. It’s a more visually lavish affair than its predecessor (on a budget not all that much bigger), the film proving to be positively stuffed to the brims with fascinating creature designs, and Del Toro’s more confident with the action, with a number of deeply enjoyable set pieces. But crucially, it doesn’t swap scope for soul: if anything, it’s rather more poignant and romantic than its predecessor, partly because of the folklore setting, which gives a sense of a world of dying gods, but also thanks to the humanity and sheer love that Del Toro invests in his characters. Is there a moment as charming in any of these films as Hellboy and Abe (Doug Jones) getting drunk together?

captain-america-the-winter-soldier-scarlett-johansson-chris-evans11. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)
The Russo Brothers (and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) are the people put in charge of Marvel’s crown-jewel, as they’ll be directing and penning the two-part “Infinity War” extravaganza that the Marvel movies have been steadily building towards. And little wonder after “The Winter Soldier,” the movie that got them the job. The film, which sees Cap on the run after he discovers that SHIELD is rotten from the inside, has plenty of problems: the title villain is mostly wasted in the film, it reaches a sense of action fatigue by the time it reaches its conclusion, and the politics are kind of muddy at best. But the benefits of the film have lingered more than the demerits: the fine performances by Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie and Robert Redford, the confidence with which it’s all executed, the twists and turns of the plot, the stylish way in which the action sequences are executed. Like most of the latter-day Marvel Studios pictures, it overstays its welcome. But the tone is so well judged, and the characters so involving, that you don’t begrudge that extra twenty minutes or so too much. And better was still to come…

unbreakable-bruce-willis10. “Unbreakable” (2000)
Barely a year after the monumental success of “The Sixth Sense” saw him anointed the new Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalan returned with a stealth superhero movie, a movie colder, tougher and less likable than its predecessor, but one that stands as its equal. Uniquely for this list, it’s a movie that most people during its theatrical release didn’t realize was a superhero pic: the film was marketed with the utmost secrecy, with teaser trailers painting it as another supernatural thriller in which Bruce Willis’ blue-collar Philly security guard David Dunn is the lone survivor of a devastating train crash. But the movie itself soon set out its stall, with Samuel L. Jackson’s brittle-boned comic-book store owner Elijah suggesting to Willis that he could be a real-life superhero. The film’s twist ending mostly works, but retrospectively hints at the kind of contrivances and sloppy plotting that Shymalan’s later movies would be sunk by. But on the whole, it’s a striking, sober and fascinating picture that posits superheroes as modern-day mythology, and includes some of Shyamalan’s finest filmmaking (Eduardo Serra’s photography is particularly memorable). Perhaps the only film on this list that got too few sequels, rather than too many.

superman-the-movie-christopher-reeve9. “Superman: The Movie” (1978)
If all superheroes have origin stories — except Spider-Man, whose powers are a total mystery and no one has ever made a film about — then so do superhero films, and the ground-zero for our current obsession with caped crusaders is undoubtedly Richard Donner‘s 1978 take on Schuster & Siegel‘s Man of Steel. To that point the most expensive film ever made (at a kind of adorable-sounding $55m) “Superman” was a risk. Replacement director Donner’s insistence on an unknown in the title role, unprecedented special effects and a complete reworking of Mario Puzo‘s script, along with the famously costly cameo from Marlon Brando meant that it was big gamble in a relatively untested arena. But “Superman” was a smash hit, and retains its intense watchability to this day, a lot due to the perfect nailing of tone that Donner achieved — not serious, exactly, despite the presence of Oscar winners Brando and Gene Hackman in the cast, but certainly not goofy either, it’s a film that, like its central character, has a kind of earnestness that is still hugely beguiling. The contribution made to that old-fashioned, cornbread decency by the delightfully disingenuous Christopher Reeve can’t be underestimated, either and even the film’s dodgier aspects (reversing time!) have been somewhat offset by the far more ludicrous plot twists that have occurred in superhero films ever since.

dark-knight-rises-anne-hathaway8. “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012)
To some, “The Dark Knight Rises” is the weakest of Christopher Nolan’s Bat-Trilogy. To us, it comes dangerously close to being our favorite of the three. Shifting genres lightly from the crime saga of its predecessor to a sort of grand state-of-the-nation epic, it’s undeniably overstuffed and overwrought, but is never less than gripping, and ultimately ends up the most consistent and satisfying complete film of the three, even if doesn’t necessarily hit the heights of the middle entry. Picking up a few years on from “The Dark Knight,” with Batman long retired and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) broken and reclusive, only to be brought out when burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) steals his fingerprints, part of a vast conspiracy that leads to masked mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy) and beyond. The story lacks a single great villain, but juggles about a dozen moving pieces in a way that masks the vacuum left by Heath Ledger’s passing as well as anyone could have hoped. As such, it’s a big movie in every sense (including the near-three-hour running time), and about as nimble as a cargo ship, but its novelstic, Lean-ian sweep makes it feel like you’re watching an entire season of television, in the best possible way. And yet while “Batman Begins” got silly in the third act, and “The Dark Knight” tried to sequelize itself in the closing 45 minutes, it all feels like a coherent whole here, and we suspect its reputation will only grow in time.

guardians-of-the-galaxy-chris-pratt-zoe-saldana-dave-bautista7. ”Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014)
Of all the unpromising properties on paper, Marvel’s motley crew in ‘Guardians’ looked among the least appealing — not widely known outside the cadre of the comic’s fans, and featuring a 5-strong squad of whom one is a monosyllabic tree and another a motor-mouthed raccoon, ‘Guardians’ had to work hard to whip up interest in advance. But as it turned out, the fact that main-brand hero films were approaching saturation point probably played in its favor, and the buzzy, grungy new energy that James Gunn brought to the franchise-starter proved a happy reworking of the form. It’s hardly revolutionary, adhering to a very familiar “chase a maguffin down with a forgettable baddie on your heels” formula, but wittily scripted by Gunn and Nicole Perlman, with an eye more on character than plot, it still feels like an alternative, more independent-spirited film, despite remaining in the boundaries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Best of all is the casting which capitalized on and contributed to the breakout of lead Chris Pratt and gave wrestler Dave Bautista a chance to flex his surprisingly supple comedy muscles, while Zoe Saldana brought the sexy and the strong despite being painted green, and Bradley Cooper had arguably his most ingratiating role, even though it was voice-only as Rocket. And then they were all outshone by Vin Diesel as an adorable CG tree. We are Groot.