What is the best viewing order for MCU? Chronological or Release

So you’re new to MCU and decided to give this universe a shot. Or perhaps you wanna introduce your friends or family to this epic Universe? Maybe wanna show it to your children? Or just rewatching it with your boyfriend or girlfriend or alone? If yes, then you’re in the right place. I will tell you the best viewing order for MCU movies.

There are two ways to watch MCU movies: 1. Chronological order, 2. Release order. Both will have their own benefit and distinct experience and it varies from viewer to viewer in which order they prefer to watch.

However, there’s been a widespread debate among fans as to what’s the best order for viewing MCU movies. Some people say that the best way is to watch them chronologically while others suggest to watch them in release order.

So, here I am to help you out. However, please note I will not force you or tell you to watch them in this particular order. Instead, I’ll tell you exactly the pros and cons of each order. And then the final decision is up to you. So let’s start:

Viewing MCU in Chronological Order

When you watch movies in the order of the time they’ve occurred then it’s called chronological order. In layman terms, if you watch ’em in this order, the events will happen consecutively or sequentially.

So here is the Chronological viewing order for MCU movies:

1. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
2. Captain Marvel (2019)
3. Iron Man (2008)
4. Iron Man 2 (2010)
5. Thor (2011)
6. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
7. The Avengers (2012)
8. Iron Man 3 (2013)
9. Thor: The Dark World (2013)
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
11. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
12. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
13. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014)
14. Ant-Man (2015)
15. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
16. Black Panther (2018)
17. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
18. Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)
19. Doctor Strange (2016)
20. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
21. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
22. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
23. Spiderman: Far From Home (2019)

Pros

Here are some of the advantages:

• The most important advantage of watching MCU in chronological order is that: You don’t have to worry about timeline issues.
  
• All the events happen sequentially. Which means there will be no time jumps. Except, of course, there might be time jumps in an individual movie.

Please note: There are also moments where two or more films are happening like at the same time or with a gap of weeks. For instance, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor all took place within the span of a week. Anyways that will still not affect your experience.

Cons

Here are the main disadvantages:

• The main disadvantage is the post-credit scenes. Marvel has put a lot of effort into its cinematic universe.
  
• If you watch MCU in chronological order, the post-credit scene will become irrelevant or rather confusing.
  
• And if you don’t watch the post-credit scenes you will not understand how beautifully marvel connected this shared universe.

To conclude, I would like to say that not every MCU movie is good. Don’t get me wrong they’re all entertaining but some do lack the tone and composure. But if you look at them as a shared universe they’re all beautiful.

I have explained somewhere in this article: How Ant-Man 2 as an individual movie wasn’t great. But if we look at it as a road from ‘Civil War’ to ‘Infinity War‘ it’s awesome. so let’s move to our release order:

Viewing MCU in Release order

Release order as the name suggests: We’ll watch the movies in the order they’ve released. So here is a complete list of infinity saga movies.

This is the right order to watch MCU in release order:

1. Iron Man (May 2008)
2. The Incredible Hulk (June 2008)
3. Iron Man 2 (April 2010)
4. Thor (April 2011)
5. Captain America: The First Avenger (July 2011)
6. The Avengers (April 2012)
7. Iron Man 3 (April 2013)
8. Thor: The Dark World (November 2013)
9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (March 2014)
10. Guardians of the Galaxy (July 2014)
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron (April 2015)
12. Ant-Man (July 2015)
13. Captain America: Civil War (April 2016)
14. Doctor Strange (October 2016)
15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (April 2017)
16. Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 2017)
17. Thor: Ragnarok (October 2017)
18. Black Panther (January 2018)
19. Avengers: Infinity War (April 2018)
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 2018)
21. Captain Marvel (March 2019)
22. Avengers: Endgame (April 2019)
23. Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2, 2019)

Pros

When watching in release order, the pros of Chronological order become cons and cons become pros.

Here are the main pros of watching MCU in release order:

• You will witness the journey from Iron Man to Endgame and then to the aftermath of Endgame i.e., Spider-man: Far From Home.
• All the built-up will be in front of your eyes. And you will just keep wondering, how beautifully this universe was planned out from starting.
• Post credit scene, you’ll just love them. Because that’s what connects this Universe.

Trust me you’ll love this cinematic universe. Just don’t watch this with the eye of critics rather enjoy every moment of it.

Cons

Here are some of the cons of watching MCU movies in release order:

• There might be some timeline confusion when you watch them in release order. Don’t worry timeline is nothing like the X-men universe. It’s pretty linear.
• But You will see a lot of time jumps. Like one movie is set in 2018 then the next movie will show you the events of 1995.
• Nevertheless, the timeline definitely not messy but we will see time jumps. And these time jumps might be irritating to some viewers.

Where to Watch

Now, after reading this article if you have decided to give this Universe a shot. And wondering where to watch them.

Don’t worry I’ve got you covered.

Most of the MCU movies are available at Disney Plus right now. However, Spider-Man movies are not available as the streaming rights are owned by Sony. Not to mention The Incredible Hulk as Universal studios have the rights to that movie.

So you can get a subscription of Disney Plus if you haven’t already. Or you can rent the movies.

Also, you can buy them in Blu-ray. But it’ll be hectic to buy all the physical copies individually. So it’ll be better if you buy the Whole MCU Phase1-3 collection on Amazon.

It’s available at an amazing price. Additionally, you will get the collector’s theme cards and 8×11 movie posters of original releases in theatres along with Bonus discs.

Conclusion

So, now I have explained to you the advantages and disadvantages of viewing MCU in both Chronological and release order. It’s up to you in which order you want to watch them.

Nevertheless, whatever order you decide to watch them, you are definitely going to enjoy it. However, I would like to give you my opinion on this. Personally, I think if you are watching MCU for the first time, you should go for the release order. And if you’re rewatching it then go for chronological order.

This whole infinity saga in about 3000 minutes longer. That means more than 2 days if you watch them continuously. It’s also a reference to one of the best Tony Stark’s quote: I Love you 3000. So what are you waiting for? Go grab your popcorn and start watching this epic saga.

And after watching all the movies come back here and comment what’s your favorite movie and character from the Marvel universe.

And for those who are going to rewatch this, let us know what’s your favorite viewing order for MCU.