1) Captain America: Civil War
There’s only one film that can be claimed as the best superhero movie of the year. Bringing just about every hero in the MCU together for an emotionally-resonant, fanboy-pleasing punch-up, Captain America: Civil War was everything we hoped it would be. It’s tough to say whether it is the best Marvel movie so far, but it’s certainly up there.
Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. both give terrific performances as the two friends brought into conflict by both their differing ideologies and their personal feelings for the Winter Soldier. The Russos’ direction is superb, and marries the grand comic book splash panel fight scenes (oh boy, that airport sequence) with the more down-to-earth tone of The Winter Soldier. Not to mention the fact that it gave us two great non-origin story superhero debuts in Spider-Man and Black Panther.
Earning comfortably over $1 billion at the global box office, Civil War stands as the highest-grossing film of the year. Obviously all the previous movies helped to give it a boost, but what this really proves is that if you give the public a good film they’ll come to watch it. Let’s hope all the various superhero movie franchises out there remember that in future.