10) Iron Man
9) Avengers: Infinity War
8) Thor: Ragnarok
7) Ant Man
6) Avengers: Age of Ultron
5) Avengers: End Game
4) Captain America - Civil War
3) Captain America - Winter Soldier
2) Captain America - The First Avenger
1) Guardians of the Galaxy
Honorable Mention: Guardians of the Galaxy II, Dr. Strange
What doesn't make the cut and why:
Black Panther: This is a top 5 MCU movie right up until its utterly miserable and stupid third act. One of the few times that the MCU falls down is the third act of Black Panther versus the third act of Dark Knight. Fundamentally the writer's do not seem to have a clue how to resolve the tension between the hero and the villain of this movie or answer any of the really interesting questions they raised, leaving the ending to come down to simply might makes right with no resolution of the moral issues the movie raised. I feel there are obvious moral critiques that Black Panther could make of Killmonger's philosophy that just go unvoiced. Compare with Dark Knight were the Joker's nihilism and cynicism are what causes his failure, and not just that he can't win at fisticuffs versus Batman. Also, this movie actually gets better if Martin Freeman's character just isn't in it, or if he resolves the situation in ways that don't involve force.
Spider Man (any movie): Don't get me wrong, as Tom Holland is easily the best Spiderman of any of the movie series and I love that they finally get Spiderman (as opposed to Peter Parker) right in the movies. But, the stakes in these movies just never compel me quite the way some of the other MCU story lines do.
Captain Marvel: Quite unlike some criticisms, I quite liked Brie Larson as Carol Danvers and I enjoyed the action adventure aspect of this movie, but again, this criticism may be obvious by now, but I didn't like the third act resolution. There is a longstanding trope across many stories starting with the works of Diana Wynne Jones and extending to such modern novels as Mark Lawerence's "Red Sister" where men achieve power through self-control, hard work, discipline, study and moral virtue and women's power is just unleashed by just embracing their ego and anger and stop thinking about things and just bossing things around. And at some point not only is that answer and trope rather trite, but at some point it becomes really sexist and a terrible lesson for anyone male or female. Like even with Diana Wynne Jones, this trope works pretty well in "Howl's Moving Castle" but by the time you get to "House of Many Doors" it's already tiresome. It's ultimately the trope that men are intellectual and women are just instinctive emotional creatures, and even when it's meant to address some valid complaints by women or to edify them ultimately it's just at the bottom of it a male centered view of the world. And even beyond that, it's such an overused plot now that I feel it's just lazy writing.
