Most fictional genres date back centuries, if not millennia. Actors performed comedies back in ancient Greece. Audiences flocked to musicals in the 1890s, and as soon as movies gained the ability to talk, they started singing as well. (Literally the first sync sound motion picture ever made was also the first movie musical.)
Superheroes, by comparison, belong to a relatively young genre. They only emerged from the pages of comic books in the late 1930s. And while a handful of their stars were adapted to movie serials in the 1940s, it took decades for film technology to catch up to the imaginations of the graphic artists at Marvel, DC Comics, and elsewhere.
It’s only in the last 50 years that superhero films have really taken off, and it’s only in the last 20 years that they exploded in popularity, thanks to the adaptations of those famous Marvel and DC properties like Spider-Man, Batman, and, to a far lesser extent, Jonah Hex. So why not rank those 50 years of superhero movies and, since that’s a nice big, round number, why not pick the best 50 superhero movies from that span of time? That gives me plenty of space to include all the best Spider-Mans, the best Batmans, plus the best superheroes that aren’t by Marvel or DC — or based on existing comic-book IP at all. Read on to see all 50 of my picks.
(Spoiler alert: Jonah Hex did not make the cut.)
The 50 Best Superhero Movies of the Last 50 Years
Here are the 50 essential superhero movies over the last half century. (No, Batman & Robin didn’t make the cut.)
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Sequels That Switched Genres
These sequels continued their predecessor’s stories while totally changing their genres.