back in 2024, a few friends and I decided to tackle the entirety of the 21st century fox x-men movies in anticipation(?) of the upcoming film, Deadpool & Wolverine.
we watched these 14 films over the course of several months in a series I had titled “xavier’s home for gifted thursdays”.
I am still not quite sure why we did this, other than to punish ourselves but now I at least have a comprehensive list of what I think of these movies as an adult man who has other, better things to do.
so for my debut blog post, without further ado, here is my ranking of x-men films, from worst to best:
14. The New Mutants (2020, dir. Josh Boone)
this movie absolutely sucks ass. it is truly so bad and it makes sense why it was buried and released during a pandemic so no one could see it. it has zero reason to exist and was a waste of time to watch.
13. Deadpool (2016, dir. Tim Miller)
I just don’t think this thing should have ever existed. it has given ryan reynolds untold amounts of power in this world that he should have never been given.
12. Dark Phoenix (2019, dir. Simon Kinberg)
this one is super notable to me because in the week leading up to watching this movie I was going on and on about giving it a fair shake and coming into it with an open mind because I was pretty sure I’d never seen it before. like 20 minutes into this thing I realize, I HAVE seen it before, in its entirety, and I just forgot about it completely. this thing has zero sauce and nothing about it is good.
11. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, dir. Brett Ratner)
the third x-men film in the original trilogy feels like it was a movie purely made of out spite. they explode cyclops for no reason other than that james marsden had a small role in superman returns and brett ratner was jealous or something,
10. Deadpool 2 (2018, dir. David Leitch)
deadpool 2 is better than deadpool 1 because it has more of a plot and also cable is there but basically every other character is sooooo annoying. bad flick.
9. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024, dir. Shawn Levy)
deadpool & wolverine was meant to be the crown jewel of this experiment. for some reason. why did we do this. the only part of this movie I truly enjoyed was channing tatum’s stupid accent as gambit. everything else was torturous, they even got the “comic accurate” wolverine suit wrong.
8. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, dir. Bryan Singer)
this movie is too long. oscar isaac is blue in it.
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009, dir. Gavin Hood)
the first movie in the long running “x-men origins” series, features will.i.am as john wraith, which is weird, and also ryan reynolds is there as an edgy version of wolverine. the funniest part of this whole thing is troye sivan as young logan.
6. The Wolverine (2013, dir. James Mangold)
ok this thing *is* just Thing, Japan as a movie but it’s fun to see wolverine go to japan! that’s worth at least 3 stars.
5. X-Men: First Class (2011, dir. Matthew Vaughn)
first class is a fun period piece with a fun cast and they do fun things. it’s fun!
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014, dir. Bryan Singer)
all your classic favorite guys are here! they got old xavier, they got young xavier, they got old magneto, they got young magneto. what’s better than this?
3. X-Men (2000, dir. Bryan Singer)
I can tell you what is, X-Men (2000) is. this is a movie that has the lowest stakes out of any superhero movie out there and it benefits so much from that. also the halle berry “what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning” line is so funny it makes me laugh every time.
2. X2 (2003, dir. Bryan Singer)
X2 takes everything I liked about the first movie and adds more of it and there’s truly no other way I would have rather had a sequel. they should have stopped here.
1. Logan (2017, dir. James Mangold)
It’s simply the best one. I don’t know what else to say, it’s the best an x-men movie has ever been and a good ending to this whole thing until disney decided it was not the end.