I rewatched (almost) the entire X-Men cinematic universe, so you don’t have to! But you should watch many of these if you haven’t seen them or revisit a few. I’m going to be upfront with you. I did not revisit 2009’s WOLVERINE because I’ve seen it a couple of times, and nothing will change my 🤮emoji. I also did not revisit THE NEW MUTANTS as I saw it for the first time semi-recently, so there was no need. Let’s jump right in.
X-MEN (2000) 😊
My rewatch reminded me that X-MEN may not be anywhere near the greatest superhero film, but it is an excellent introduction to the characters. I wasn’t an X-Men comic-book reader, and I had only seen the 1992-1997 animated TV series a tiny bit 24 years ago, so I didn’t come in with any preconceived notions except one. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men, and he and James Marsden, playing him, are severely underutilized in every move he appears in. Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellan as Magneto, and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine are all top-tier casting choices. If you’re going to watch the rest of the films, start here and know it gets better.
X2: X-MEN UNITED (2003) 🤩
X2 is the first GREAT superhero film of the modern era, followed soon after by 2004’s SPIDERMAN 2. Watching it 21 years after its release allowed me to compare it to the many that came after it. It doesn’t have the polish that most of the MCU films or the Nolan Batman trilogy have, but that doesn’t make it any less of a great movie. The writing is stellar and perfectly misses the older and younger generations of X-Men.
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006) 😊
I’ve never been one to hate this film entirely, and on this rewatch, I decided it’s firmly underrated. Yes, I know director Brett Ratner is a terrible person…and so is Bryan Singer, the director of many of the other films in this series. Some story elements go wrong here – Jean Gray’s (Famke Janssen) arc is smushed into a movie with 100 other things going on. I’ll always be sad we didn’t get a stand-alone Dark Phoenix film starring Janssen. But this is still a run ride, and Ian McKellan’s performance alone makes it worth watching.
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009) 🤮
I didn’t need to rewatch this movie to remember how silly and awful it was. Hugh Jackman is lucky they let him make two more Wolverine movies, even though this debacle is not his fault. Skip this and go directly to the 2013 sequel.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) 😊
Like 2000’s X-MEN, I liked this film more the first time around. The soft reboot of the X-Men universe, with all new actors playing the younger versions of their characters, is an admirable outing. The acting and story are good, but they don’t hook me in like X-2. FIRST CLASS is setting the table, again, for a better sequel.
THE WOLVERINE (2013)😊
WOLVERINE was so bad that THE WOLVERINE feels like another soft reboot. It’s a personal story about Logan/Wolverine and a man he once knew in his very long life. The inner relationships between the X-Men is a family drama, but this time, Logan is on his own and pulled into a very different type of family feud. I’d place this film below X-MEN and FIRST CLASS and above LAST STAND. It’s worth a watch, for sure. Plus, it sets up the next, far better, full X-Men film.
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014) 🤩
After all that we’ve learned about Bryan Singer, it makes me mad that this film (and X-2) are just so damn good. This is by far the most complicated story of the series, and it exists as ANOTHER reset of the storyline. James McAvoy, as Charles Xavier/Professor X, and Michael Fassbender, as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, really come in and own these roles. Peter Dinklage, as the main antagonist, Bolivar Trask, is a chef’s kiss type of touch on an already superb cast.
DEADPOOL (2016)🤩
DEADPOOL is a sharp left turn from any of the films I’ve discussed above. It’s far more of an action comedy than the rest, and thank the Gods for that. There are lots of laughs, plus also lots of blood, gore, and R-rated humor because, well, this was the first R-rated film from Marvel. Ryan Reynolds is the perfect Deadpool, and every time I see him in just about anything else, he’s still Deadpool to me. My biggest complaint is that the villains here are throwaways – too shallow to care about.
X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (2016)😊
The first time I saw APOCALYPSE, I thought it was straight-up garbage. 🤮I almost didn’t rewatch it, but I’m so glad I did! It’s nowhere near great, but like LAST STAND, it’s pretty good. Oscar Isaac plays the titular character and as much as I always enjoy his performances – this really could have been anyone underneath loads of makeup, prosthetics, and digital effects. From what I learned over the 24 years between X-MEN and today is that Apocalypse is a massive villain in the comic books and deserves a more significant role in the films. There’s still a lot to like here, including the addition of several new X-Men. I’d put this near the bottom of my recommendations, but I recommend it nonetheless.
DEADPOOL 2 (2018)😊
DEADPOOL 2 is a lazy title for this sequel, and unfortunately, the film delivers a lot more of the same from the first, but there some some highlights. The introduction of Cable, played by Josh Brolin, is nice, but the film’s real star is young Julian Dennison as Russell. There are a bunch of other “superheroes from the comics” thrown in, but none of them matter much in the grand scheme of things. And much like we’ve seen in other X-Men films, there’s another story device here that allows for some resets (yes, plural) to happen, some of which I bet we haven’t seen yet.
LOGAN (2017) 🤩
LOGAN is the best of the X-Men universe so far. It’s the gold medal, 1st place winner, Northstar, etc etc. No wonder it was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar. Like the Deadpool movies, it’s also Rated-R, and it needs to be to tell us this story. Unlike Deadpool, it’s not nearly as gory or dirty, but it does touch on a lot of very adult themes from aging, disease, and child trafficking, plus it’s just VERY violent. If you’ve been watching these films since they started, this is the Wolverine we’ve waited for. Jackman has never been better. In the many previous appearances of Wolverine, he tells us over and over he’s pissed off. He warns people time and time again not to push him over the limit. We’ve hit the threshold and gone far past it, which has given us one of the best superhero films of all time.
X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX (2019) 🤮
Unfortunately, LOGAN is the last great X-Men film I’ve seen, but maybe DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE will bring us back to greatness. DARK PHOENIX is the story we should have gotten a decade earlier and with the older X-Men cast. Sophie Turner, from GAME OF THRONES, does her best to embody Jean Grey but lacks the maturity that I believe Famke Jenssen would have brought. The script just isn’t quite there, which is surprising since Simon Kinberg wrote and directed this; it seems he could have made changes for the better as he went along. Or perhaps he overthought the entire thing, and we’re seeing the repercussions of that? It’s too bad. This could have been the LOGAN-esque film for a beloved character.
THE NEW MUTANTS (2020)🤮
I didn’t rewatch this either because I only saw it for the first time recently. The creators wanted a mutant horror film, but they made it PG-13 and filled it with the most forgettable elements in all of the movies. At least DARK PHOENIX affected me. The premise that mutant-related stories are not centered around the X-Men is interesting, but THE NEW MUTANTS doesn’t deliver anything beyond the set-up. Just an absolute waste of acting talent.
All of the X-Men universe films are streaming on Disney+.
