With an array of television shows, one-shots, Netflix series and movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be quite a daunting prospect for the completist. Thankfully, Reddit user Fast_Is_Better has created a chronological watch order for the entire undertaking (see below). He titled it ‘hronological order’ in the original post, but we won’t hold that against him.
UPDATE: Check out the comments for corrections, courtesy of SBK, Timo Qvintus and LeightonJones…
We’ll also overlook the use of Comic Sans.
As the infographic states, the order is correct as of August 2015. Who knows what else Marvel could insert into that timeline (hopefully a young Michael Douglas 50s Ant-Man one-shot), and Agent Carter Season 2 and the rest of Netflix’s Defenders set-ups (including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist) are just over the Marvel horizon. You can just make them out if you squint past all the alien ships/S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarriers/entire Eastern European cities falling out of the sky.
The next film in the MCU – quite fittingly, as its the series that chronologically kicks off the Universe – is Captain America: Civil War, which is set for release on April 29th 2016 in the UK and May 6th 2016 in the States, with Anthony and Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) directing a cast that includes Marvel Cinematic Universe veterans Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton/Hawkeye), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch), Paul Bettany (The Vision), Don Cheadle (James Rhondes/War Machine), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), Emily VanCamp (Sharon Carter) and Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow/Crossbones) and William Hurt (General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross) alongside new additions Chadwick Boseman (Get on Up) as T’Challa/Black Panther, Daniel Bruhl (Rush) as Baron Zemo, Martin Freeman (Sherlock) and Tom Holland (The Impossible) as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
SBK says
One mistake there: The Agent Carter One Shot is either not canon anymore or set after the series. But not before!
Luke Owen says
I actually think Daredevil comes earlier in the timeline. They make a lot of references to the “Events in New York” like they just happened. So it’s probably around Iron Man 3/Thor: The Dark World era of the MCU.
But that’s just me.
Timo Qvintus says
My text from Geektyrant where this was posted yesterday:
Agent Carter One-Shot is either out of main continuity or happens much later than the series. It ends with Howard being at the position to call Peggy over to Washington to run SHIELD, while in the current series Howard is still only an inventor and SHIELD does not exist. Also, the bikini were invented in 1946 but didn’t become popular in the US until years and years later.
IM2, Thor and TIH happen simultaneously, which is explored in “Fury’s Big Week” tie-in comics. Fury has already met the Hulk before any of this, and decided to let him go but they’re keeping an eye on him (Sitwell, to be exact). IM2 begins first, concurrent with the Asgard part of Thor. Coulson leaves to New Mexico when Thor’s hammer lands (actually slightly before that) and Stark Expo fight happens that night. Hawkeye arrives to NM (via the now-busted gas station that was in the Coulson One-Shot) just in time for Thor to try lift his hammer. Only after this is Banner sighted at Culver University, and that fight takes place. After Natasha returns from the fight scene, Fury tells Stark that they’ll be only using him as a consultant. Minutes later, the Destroyer attacks in NM, and Thor leaves. SHIELD takes the Destroyer in their possession, and shortly afterwards the Hulk Harlem fight happens. After this Fury gets more resources from the World Security Council and a year goes by, until they find Capsticle. The series ends with Fury taking Hawkeye to watch over Selvig who is working on the Tesseract.
Kinda confused about timing Ant-Man, because of (SPOILERS!) Hydra’s involvement in the Yellowjacket deal. The heads were effectively wiped out during AOS season2, so if Ant-Man takes place after that, where did these guys come from? On the other hand, Ant-Man definitely takes place after A:AOU, which occurs before the end of AOS season2.
Daredevil takes place after first Avengers, but other than that I don’t think it’s not chronologically tied to anything?
LeightonJones says
The correct order is;
Agent Carter Series
(Agent Carter One-Shot)
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
A Funny Thing… One-Shot
Thor
The Incredible Hulk
The Consultant One-Shot
Avengers
…although IM2, Thor and TIHulk overlap.