Now that Deadpool works for Mickey Mouse, the days of Fox X-Men movies are truly at an end. Yes, Ryan Reynolds’ fourth-wall-breaking hero is back for Deadpool & Wolverine, and it features a bunch of characters from the Fox Marvel universe – including old Hugh Jackman’s Logan himself – but this is a Disney movie now, bub. SNIKT!
So that means it’s time for the most definitive ranking of the X-Men movies that you, and we actually, can be mad about. Yes, the Fox X-Men movies are done, but there’s no denying that the series laid much of the groundwork for our modern superhero movie landscape. So there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s assess these past 24 years of mutant madness – the good, the bad, and the Origins. This is The Fox X-Men Movies: The Final Ranking!
13. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Rather than truly dive into Logan’s deep back story, Hugh Jackman’s first solo outing as the clawed one is like X-Men Lite – overstuffed with mutant characters it’s hard to care about, dull, and too divergent from key aspects of the comics. I mean… that’s supposed to be Deadpool?! If only we could take an amnesia bullet too…
12. Dark Phoenix
A producer and writer on the X-Men films going back to The Last Stand, director Simon Kinberg took a stab at the classic Dark Phoenix saga for a second time in this, the final theatrically released Fox X-Men movie (not including the spin-off The New Mutants, that is). Unfortunately, the cosmic epic from the Chris Claremont and John Byrne comic was once again under-served, just as it had been in The Last Stand, with the 2019 film just feeling too small in comparison. It was a problem the X-Men movies always faced: From the very beginning, they never quite seemed to know how to slide into the more over-the-top aspects of their source material, and with Dark Phoenix – a story that demands to be over-the-top – the core X-Men series went out with a whimper instead of a galactic bang.
11. X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Apocalypse marginalizes key relationships, particularly Xavier and Magneto's, in favor of establishing new ones like that of Tye Sheridan and Sophie Turner’s Cyclops and Jean Grey. The problem is, the new, younger cast, rebooted in the aftermath of X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, doesn’t have much impact. And Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse fails to develop into a meaningful antagonist in his own right. He’s… very colorful though.
10. X-Men: The Last Stand
The Last Stand has its moments, but as with Dark Phoenix, adapting the more revered aspects of the comics is not among them. And the film unfortunately feels cheap at times, clearly suffering from the last-minute director swap that saw Brett Ratner come aboard, replacing Matthew Vaughn. (Don’t worry: Vaughn would leave his mark on the franchise, as we’ll see as we get higher up on this list.) The classic Dark Phoenix saga is one of the most heart-wrenching, epic tales in X-Men history, but it’s a complete loss as depicted here, and some of the greatest sins of the original trilogy of X-movies are most apparent in The Last Stand, from the sidelining of beloved characters like Cyclops, to the addition of too many mutants with no room to properly service them, to the over-reliance on Wolverine.
9. The New Mutants
The New Mutants was an interesting postscript to the X-Men movies at Fox, a long-delayed endeavor that gave us a group of characters new to the Fox Marvel universe – the titular young mutants played by Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Blu Hunt and Henry Zaga. More a horror adventure than a superhero movie, The New Mutants is actually pretty fun, but after having its release date pushed time and again, getting caught up in the Disney acquisition of Fox, and suffering from behind-the-scenes chatter of a film the studios didn’t have faith in, The New Mutants finally limped out during a COVID release. It’s too bad though, because the further adventures of Wolfsbane, Magik, Cannonball, Mirage and Sunspot could’ve taken the X-Men movies in a whole new direction.
8. Deadpool 2
Wade Wilson’s second solo film is short on plot while also managing to be crasser, gorier, and funnier than its predecessor. Which is pretty much what you want from a Deadpool movie. And yet, despite the character’s trademark flippancy, there’s a real unexpected warmth to Deadpool 2 as well. Also worth an honorable mention on this list is Once Upon a Deadpool, the PG-13 re-edit of Deadpool 2. Ryan Reynolds’ marquee character really works best in his full R-rated glory, but for anyone who wants the neutered version, the Merc With a Mouth is there for you.
7. X-Men
The original X-Men deserves credit for helping to shape the then-fledgling modern superhero film genre. Mutant superpowers were merged into a real-world setting that made it feel plausible that a guy who could shoot rays from his eyes could potentially be, say, standing next to you on line in the train station. The film took a big step towards normalizing comic-book shenanigans for mainstream audiences in the year 2000 who basically only knew about characters like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man. But at the same time, the film sometimes feels embarrassed by its pulpy origins – yeah, costumes beyond leather duds were off-limits. Looking at X-Men today, the budget strains against the very notion of mutant superpowers, and that finale feels pretty small when compared to what was yet to come. But still, this was the X-Men in live action! And Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was a win in and of itself.
6. The Wolverine
Speaking of which… After the X-Men Origins mess, there was a lot at stake for Jackman on Wolverine’s second solo film. But working with director James Mangold, they nailed it. The Wolverine takes the haunted, immortal Logan off on his own adventure, giving him an almost James Bond-like arc that is exciting, riffing on the character’s famed adventures in Japan from the comics, and mostly grounded… if you don’t count the giant CG samurai suit in the third act. That’s OK though, as Mangold and Jackman would take one more try at the character soon enough…
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past, much like its mutant heroes, beat the odds and successfully merged the casts of both the original X-Men series and the First Class team, while also deftly and smartly adapting the classic comics story about mutant extinction and time travel. How great was it to see Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, and the rest back in action? Not to mention that impossible to not love ending which resurrects Famke Janssen and James Marsden’s Jean and Scott?! This is also the most epic of X-Men films, a time-spanning, ambitiously rendered conflict. Too bad the continuity reboot the film culminates with was mostly wiped away in the subsequent films.
4. Deadpool
After his X-Men Origins near miss, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool was successfully revived on the big screen in this hit movie full of great one-liners, stylish action, weird and lovable characters, and heaps of fan service. Deadpool delivers a large dose of unwholesome fun and was just the oddball new direction that the X-movies needed when it was released in 2016. In fact, Deadpool remains the highest-grossing film in the X-Men Fox canon, while Deadpool 2 takes the number two spot. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Deadpool & Wolverine is how Marvel boss Kevin Feige chose to merge the series with the MCU.
3. X-Men: First Class
The X-franchise was in trouble after The Last Stand and X-Men Origins. But X-Men: First Class rejuvenated the series with a prequel/semi-reboot approach that featured all new actors in a tale of Xavier and Magneto’s early days. The arrival of then-on-the-cusp stars Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and James McAvoy proved to be invaluable casting, while the new mutant faces like Zoe Kravitz's Angel, Caleb Landry Jones' Banshee, and Kevin Bacon’s villainous Sebastian Shaw infused the film with an excitement that was lacking in the series after those last couple of films. Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, who as we noted earlier had come this close to directing The Last Stand, brought a fresh, stylish, and exciting feel to the aging franchise, allowing it to rise from the creative ashes… yes, like a Phoenix.
2. X2: X-Men United
X2 took the world created in the first film and broadened it, while also hinting at grander things to come. With the core cast now established – and mostly beloved by viewers – X2 is also full of great action sequences, like the nightime raid on the X-mansion by Brian Cox’s William Stryker and his forces, which leads to Jackman’s Logan going full Wolverine. Sure, certain frustrations that many fans would have with the series are evident here, such as Cyclops getting sidelined from the main action. But characters like new-to-the-series Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler truly get to the heart of the X-Men’s thematic strength – the idea of outcasts hated and feared by a world they are sworn to protect! And hey, you know we love them for it.
1. Logan
Hey, remember when this was the final story of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine? With Deadpool & Wolverine, that’s no longer the case, but director James Mangold’s Logan is in some ways the film many fans long wanted, replete with R-rated violence, adult language and earth-shattering, gut-wrenching revelations. And yet, it’s also so much more than that, serving as a meditation on the very nature of superhero stories and the comic-book movie genre itself. Logan is an emotional, heavy picture, but it’s also an uplifting one, buoyed not just by Jackman’s pitch-perfect turn as the worn-out one-time Wolverine who has one more fight left in him, but also by Patrick Stewart’s return as an Xavier who is a shell of his former self with a tragic secret, and Dafne Keen’s stupendous turn as Laura, a.k.a. X-23 to you. It’s an amazing swan song for the Wolverine character, and for Jackman, and it’s also the best of the X-Men movies.
Note: We've been updating this ranking since at least 2016 (that's as far back as we can see!). The most recent update was on July 24, 2024.
A group of IGN editors voted on their favorite X-Men films in order to arrive at this ranking. We did it in a lab, with science. Hank McCoy would approve.
via We Ranked the Fox X-Men Movies One Last Time
by Scott Collura
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