Ranking Every X-men Film

Since the arrival of the groundbreaking MCU, the X-men film franchise has gone mostly under the radar. However, if you look through the series, they’ve made arguably some of the best comic book movies of all time. With the recent release of ‘The New Mutants’ seeing the end of the 20th Century Fox-owned franchise, it’s the perfect time to do my ranking of all the X-men movies.

<spoiler warning>

12. Dark Phoenix

Disappointing doesn’t even begin to describe this mess of a film. How on earth could they mess up the Dark Phoenix storyline not once, but twice, and much worse the second time round! The plot is nonsense, Mystique’s death is wasted and Jessica Chastain’s villain is pointless. Michael Fassbender is completely forgotten about and other than Sophie Turner, the cast disappoints. The character’s motivations, especially the ludicrous plot point of Professor X’s decision to keep Jean Grey’s memories from her, are all over the place. The scene on the train is entertaining enough, but everything is lacklustre and an incredibly disappointing end to a movie series and a cast that deserved better.

11. Origins: Wolverine

You know you’ve done something wrong when Ryan Reynolds openly mocks the part he had to play in this shallow, heartless origin story. The horrific Deadpool CGI is the least of this film’s problems. The main issue here is you just don’t care. Wolverine is great, he’s probably my favourite superhero, but this story that revolves around his half-brother Sabretooth is cliché and uninteresting. There are some fun set pieces and I’ll always be happy to see Dominic Monaghan, but this could have been so much better. The fact that it was written by Skip Woods who wrote two of the awful Die Hard sequels should be no surprise. Also, why is Will.i.am in this movie? Seriously??!! No-one will be able to give me a satisfactory answer to that question.

10. The Last Stand

Where to start with this? Firstly, the cons. Professor X’s obliteration scene is absolutely ridiculous and Patrick Stewart deserved more. The big fight at the end is absurd and unworthy of finishing this initial trilogy. So many characters are given nothing to do, especially Rogue whose whole arc is forgotten about. It has nowhere near the emotional depth of the first two films and feels very out-of-place. Cyclops’ death is completely ignored and the dark phoenix plot being sidelined for a plot about a mutant child no-one really cares about was a huge mistake.

On the positive side, however, it’s not the mess that ‘Dark Phoenix’ was. There are still some fun and enjoyable moments and the performances are pretty decent across the board. There are some really interesting casting choices made as well, including Kelsey Grammar as ‘Beast’ and Ellen Page as ‘Kitty Pryde’. Plus, Juggernaut says that line (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, search on Youtube ‘juggernaut last stand’ and you’ll see what I mean).

9. The Wolverine

This is a much more interesting film than ‘Origins: Wolverine’ and really where we start to move away from the poorer films on this list. The Japanese storyline is a different direction for the X-men franchise, but one that overall pays off with new settings and characters that provide a darker and more serious plot that stays true to the source material. The strongest scenes come at both the beginning and end where a flashback opening featuring Wolverine in WW2 Nagasaki and a mid-credits scene featuring the return of Professor X and Magneto provide great drama and fan service. Unfortunately, it does fall flat in the final act where it loses a lot of what makes the beginning of the film interesting by going back to the stupid meaningless action of the first Wolverine movie.

8. Apocalypse

This is probably not as strong as ‘The Wolverine’ overall, but individual scenes that are beyond impressive elevate ‘X-men: Apocalypse’ one place higher on this list. I mainly refer to when Magneto loses his family and slaughters the soldiers and factory workers, and the incredible Quicksilver scene, brilliantly backed up by Eurythmics classic ‘Sweet Dreams’. The final battle is exciting enough, but it’s mainly about that moment when Jean Grey realises her power and confronts Apocalypse. Unfortunately though, like ‘Last Stand’, this doesn’t have the emotion and character development of the previous two films. The other big issue lies with Apocalypse himself. I love Oscar Isaac, and I think his performance is actually pretty good, but we aren’t given the build-up of his character to allow us to feel the appropriate amount of threat or tension that he should provide. It’s still a fun watch though and if ‘Dark Phoenix’ had never happened, this would have probably been a decent enough send-off for the X-men franchise.

7. Deadpool

I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to like ‘Deadpool’. I didn’t enjoy the trailer and from what I’d heard about it, I really didn’t think it would be my sense of humour. However, the film provided plenty of laughs and definitely exceeded my expectations (lesson for everyone; never believe trailers). I think a lot of this lies with the performance of Ryan Reynolds. Even when he appears in films that are pretty terrible (‘Origins: Wolverine’ being a prime example), there’s something about his charisma and on-screen presence which is just so damn enjoyable to watch. With his capable hands, the jokes land and with a Deadpool movie, that really is the most important thing. A big shout-out also has to go to Tim Miller who impresses in his directorial debut.

NB: quick mention for my fiancée who fought like hell for this to be number one and instead compromised with a shout-out.

6. X2

The first X-men movie was such a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre, but ‘X2’ didn’t disappoint as a follow-up. Nightcrawler is such a great character and provides one of the highlights of the film when he launches an attack on the Oval Office. It’s a shame he’s never been utilised as well in follow up movies. The development of the love triangle between Wolverine, Jean Grey and Cyclops provides an interesting dynamic and plays out nicely to give the dramatic finale of Jean’s sacrifice an extra emotional punch. It’s all laced together by a really tight script, and the introduction of Brian Cox as William Stryker is an excellent piece of casting. I think a lot of directors can learn a lot from Bryan Singer about how to handle multiple characters all at once. He does very well to give enough screen time for character development alongside the action, such as Wolverine learning about his past and Pyro’s descent to evil.

5. X-men

Although ‘X2’ is a very impressive sequel, the original just pips it into the top 5 of this list. To really appreciate the impact this movie made when it came out, you need a bit of context on the superhero genre. Up until this point, superhero movies were all about people in capes and pantomime villains fighting it out with cheesy catchphrases and camp costumes. Then, ‘X-men’ comes along and provides not only serious reflections on deep issues, most notably the treatment of minorities in modern society, but also excellent performances from top quality performers. Ian McKellen kills it as Magneto and Patrick Stewart is perfect casting as Professor X. More importantly though is the casting of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, which not only provided us with one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 21st century, but also allowed us to seriously invest in a character that we’ve followed through 7 movies and a huge storyline. This first movie did exactly what it needed to do to kick-start a major movie franchise and, although it may fall slightly short of some of its successor’s, it deserves our respect for it.

4. Deadpool 2

Whereas my expectations for Deadpool were low (and happily exceeded), my expectations for Deadpool 2 were probably even lower, with the memories of many disappointing comedy sequels filling my mind. How pleasant then that not only did I have my expectations subverted once again, but that I actually enjoyed the sequel even more than the first! Once again, Ryan Reynolds has the time of his life by flipping the metaphorical (and at times literal) bird to the superhero genre, but this time, with more heart and depth. The casting is excellent with Josh Brolin being brilliant as ever as ‘Cable’ and Julian Dennison really impressing as ‘Firefist’ after his exceptional performance in ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’. The setting up and then sudden demise of the X-Force is particularly hilarious and director David Leitch makes sure that the film doesn’t fall into the usual sequel trap of ‘bigger being better’. This thankfully is better despite being bigger.

3. First Class

Despite the fact that the centre of ‘First Class’ revolves around the friendship between Professor X and Magneto, this is Michael Fassbender’s movie. James McAvoy is brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but Fassbender brings such an incredible quality to the character of Eric. There is an intensity and feeling of raw power and anger within him that he brings to the role, and the scene where he kills some Nazi’s hiding in Argentina is arguably the best scene in the whole X-men series. ‘Let’s just say I’m Frankenstein’s monster, and I’m looking for my creator.’ His delivery is incredible and he shows why he’s one of the best actors in the world at the moment. Director Matthew Vaughn had just come off the huge success of ‘Kick-Ass’ and allows for this to take some of that youthful energy and create a more dramatic environment. The visual effects are smooth, the performances are great and the plot brilliantly opens up for a new series of films with an all-new cast.

2. Logan

This is Hugh Jackman’s time to shine, and no-one is taking it away from him. After the relative disappointments of ‘Origins: Wolverine’ and ‘The Wolverine’, we needed ‘Logan’ to let this character go out with a bang. It not only delivers but creates one of the most mature and sophisticated superhero movies ever made. Jackman is at his best, giving a more nuanced and emotional performance than we’ve seen before. He’s still filled with rage though and certainly by the films closing action sequences he’s giving it his all and doesn’t let go. Patrick Stewart is also at his best and through these performances; ‘Logan’ manages to create a genuinely thoughtful and heavy drama that looks deep into the human condition. There are still huge set pieces, with more violence and gore than we’ve come to expect from this franchise, but there are even times when the film is so stripped back and so focused on the characters and their plights that it almost feels like an arthouse movie. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill comic book film, this is something different.

1. Days of Future Past

This is the pinnacle of X-men movies. Time travel stories are hard to pull off, but they get it spot on here. Having Wolverine travel back to change the future brilliantly allows both sets of X-men casts to come together in what is the most fast-paced and entertaining film in the series. Whereas ‘First Class’ was Fassbender’s film, this is McAvoy’s time to shine. He really comes into his own here as we see the mental decline of Professor X after the loss of his legs. It would be wrong of me to not also mention Jennifer Lawrence who stays consistently strong across the series, but has the most fun here playing a Mystique on the run and about to change history. Seeing all the old cast come back isn’t just great for nostalgia, but also shows off how brilliantly this new cast has fitted into these roles. Director Bryan Singer returned after directing the first two movies of the series and he brings together all these elements of timelines, loss, vengeance and revolution all into one to create the most visually and emotionally satisfying film in the series.