The general assumption is that the first film in a series is the best film in the series. But it’s not always so. Plenty of people like Terminator 2: Judgment Day more than The Terminator, and just as many favor Aliens over Alien and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter over Friday the 13th. They’re not wrong and they’re not right, it just all comes down to taste. Well, that and the fact that all the aforementioned sequels genuinely give their franchise-starters a run for their money in terms of quality. The same applies to superhero movies. In fact, if there’s a subgenre where sequels find a way of vastly improving upon what was established in and worked for their predecessors, it’s the superhero movie.
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What follows are the best of the best when it comes to superhero movie sequels. Prequels weren’t necessarily excluded from consideration, but none quite made the cut anyway, and X-Men: First Class is more of a start of something new than it is a direct prequel to the original X-Men trilogy. Furthermore, it had to truly be a sequel to a predecessor, so while Birds of Prey continues a few threads established in Suicide Squad, it was really only The Suicide Squad that was considered (even though James Gunn’s film is decidedly different from David Ayer’s panned 2016 box office hit).
10) X2
Both of Bryan Singer’s original X-Men trilogy movies were trendsetters for the subgenre. But while the first film had the burden of setting up all these characters (and there are a lot of them), X2 is allowed to really flesh them out.
There are a few things that hold X2 back (e.g. its sidelining of Cyclops), but there are far more checks in the win column than the loss column. For one, Brian Cox and Kelly Hu are fantastic in their antagonistic roles. But even better is the decision to focus on Wolverine’s backstory and tie that in with the antagonists (particularly Cox’s Colonel William Stryker).
9) Thor: Ragnarok
After the mediocrity of Thor and the failure of Thor: The Dark World, not many out there were expecting Thor: Ragnarok to be one of the MCU’s best sequels, but that’s exactly what it ended up being. It’s the perfect merger of sci-fi fantasy action and Taika Waititi’s distinctive humor.
The subsequent release of Waititi’s disappointing Thor: Love and Thunder has only further emphasized just how right he got it the first time out the gate. But Love and Thunder also illustrates how, if overdone, the elements that work about Ragnarok can become very grating very quickly.
8) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Many people consider Guardians of the Galaxy one of their favorite MCU movies, if not their very favorite. And fair enough, but there’s a pretty good argument that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is better.
Director James Gunn was given more creative control than usual for the MCU with his trilogy. He was allowed to really bring his personality into it. That’s a huge advantage of all three. But the second installment has by far the best villain of the trilogy in Ego the Living Planet, while the first installment has by far the most forgettable and bland villain of the trilogy in Ronan the Accuser.
7) Logan
A risky superhero film that paid off, Logan showed that an R-rated installment within a traditionally PG-13 franchise could pay off big time. Its success proved that the R-rated Deadpool (released the year prior) wasn’t a fluke.
Logan is the superhero subgenre’s definitive Western. Toss out a six-shooter for some claws and Logan is Shane. As it turned out, we weren’t done with Wolverine quite yet, but it’s hard to imagine a more fitting finale for the character than this one.
6) Avengers: Infinity War / Avengers: Endgame
Yeah, we’re bundling Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but they are two halves of one movie, so it’s fitting. It’s also a factor that helps make the duo so impressive. More often than not, filming two movies back-to-back doesn’t pan out as well as intended.
It’s astonishing how many puzzle pieces the Russo brothers were able to juggle and fit comfortably into place with the two movies. Better yet, both halves of the story manage to stand apart from one another. While the final battle in Endgame is the MCU’s biggest set piece to date, the film as a whole feels more intimate and constrained than Infinity War, which starts with an action sequence and keeps them coming for two and a half hours until the credits roll. Not to mention, when it comes to MCU big bads, it’s going to be next to impossible to beat Thanos, even with Robert Downey Jr. coming back into the fold.
5) Batman Returns
Like its predecessor, Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is a superhero film that has influenced any number of directors throughout the years since its release, even those who are helming a movie outside the subgenre. It just wasn’t the best movie to market to kids.
Batman Returns‘ darkness is what makes it so great, though. It is all the way Burton’s vision come to life. Batman felt like a movie he was making for a studio, because that’s what it was. Returns is him making a movie he wanted to make on the studio’s dime. It ended up meaning that we got to deeply inferior films in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin afterwards, but at least we’ll always have Returns. Of course, Burton isn’t the only asset in the sequel’s corner, as Michelle Pfeiffer delivers an unbeatable performance as Catwoman and Danny DeVito crafts a truly terrifying monster as the Penguin.
4) The Suicide Squad
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad was so good that it tanked at the box office yet its director was still handed the keys to the DC kingdom the next year. Of course, its financial failure had nothing to do with Gunn’s involvement, but rather everything to do with the fact that, one, people had severely soured on the DCEU as a whole and, two, 2016’s Suicide Squad was by far the worst installment of that now defunct cinematic universe. It was a box office smash, but also a broken film at its core with obvious signs of behind-the-scenes tampering.
The Suicide Squad, however, is blatantly the vision of one individual, and he was allowed to craft that vision from the ground up and carry it out as he saw fit. Even more than in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, The Suicide Squad feels distinctly Gunn, and it benefits immensely from that. It jumps around a little bit in its plot, but it’s all the more charming and rewatchable for that. Furthermore, while John Cena made for a terrific addition to the DC world, this is once more Margot Robbie’s film, and it would be a terrible shame if the DCU doesn’t keep her on as Harley Quinn.
3) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: The Winter Soldier announced Joe and Anthony Russo as two individuals with a shared directorial vision on just what could make an MCU installment work at full capacity. It also showed that an MCU movie could play in a genre outside itself and do it well.
As a political conspiracy thriller, The Winter Soldier is every bit as breezy and compelling as Three Days of the Condor. Speaking of that classic, Robert Redford was a major get for the MCU. But what helps the film flow so smoothly is the effective placement of action sequences (not too many, not too few) and the chemistry between leads Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson.
2) Spider-Man 2
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is without a doubt the highpoint of the pre-MCU era of Marvel movie history. And to this day, there is a strong argument that it is still the best Marvel movie, even with the release of favorites such as Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Raimi’s first Spider-Man is certainly great, but it was in this first sequel that he was able to be comfortable as a director. The same goes for the performers, who seem fully in place in their roles, able to flesh them out into relatable and likable individuals. But at the end of the day, the ace in the hole for Spider-Man 2 is Doc Ock. On one hand, there’s Alfred Molina’s razor-sharp performance. He nails the intimidation factor just as well as he brings the character’s heart to life. On the other, there’s how the villain is written. Specifically, he’s not just a villain. He’s a man with an altruistic motive whose ambition gets the best of him and, by film’s end, is able to overcome the deceptive voices in his ear and do what’s best, even if what’s best isn’t what he initially intended.
1) The Dark Knight
Poignant, deeply quotable throughout, and sublimely acted, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight isn’t just the best superhero movie sequel, it’s the best superhero movie period. To many, it’s one of the best movies regardless of genre or subgenre.
This comes down to many factors. For one, it functions as a crime film to be taken seriously far more than it does an average superhero film. Two, it tells a lot of story in two and a half hours, yet never once feels overwhelming in its effort to do so. Third, and perhaps most importantly, there’s the late Heath Ledger. Plenty has been written about his work as Joker, and every word of it has been positive. His posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor win was fully deserved, and it shows bias on the Academy’s part that the film as a whole didn’t secure a Best Picture nomination. This is especially true since the selection of films that were nominated, namely Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, and winner Slumdog Millionaire, was arguably one of the least impressive Best Picture lineups in relatively recent memory.
