Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Film in Order — and Where to Stream Them in India

The film the whole thing is built on. Jon Favreau's Iron Man was a risk taken with a second-tier character and a studio's own money, and Robert Downey Jr's casting is still the single most consequential decision in the series. Watch the credits scene; it is where the idea of a shared universe is first said out loud. On JioHotstar in India.

The orphan of the MCU: Universal holds the distribution rights, Edward Norton never played the part again, and almost nothing in it is load-bearing for what follows. Skippable on a first run through, and the only reason to come back is William Hurt's Thaddeus Ross, who matters much later. On JioHotstar in India.

The film where the connective tissue starts crowding out the story — Black Widow arrives, Nick Fury's role expands, and the Avengers are visibly being set up around a plot that never quite arrives. Worth it for Sam Rockwell. On JioHotstar in India.

Kenneth Branagh directing Shakespeare in space, which sounds like a joke until you notice how well the family drama works. It introduces Loki, who becomes the most durable character in the franchise. On JioHotstar in India.

A 1940s war film with a superhero in it, and the earliest chapter in the MCU's internal chronology apart from a Captain Marvel flashback. If you are watching in story order rather than release order, this is where you start. On JioHotstar in India.

The payoff that justified four years of setup and changed how studios plan a decade. Joss Whedon's team-up is still the cleanest demonstration of what the format can do, and the New York battle is referenced for the next fifteen years. On JioHotstar in India.

Shane Black's post-traumatic Tony Stark film, with a twist about the Mandarin that split the audience permanently and a Christmas setting nobody expected. It is the most personal of the Iron Man films and the least interested in the wider universe. On JioHotstar in India.

Generally agreed to be the weakest entry in the series, and the one whose plot device — the Aether, one of the Infinity Stones — is the only reason it stays essential. Skip it if you must; read the stone's whereabouts on a wiki if you do. On JioHotstar in India.

The Russo brothers' first MCU film and the one that changed the register: a paranoid 1970s conspiracy thriller in which S.H.I.E.L.D. collapses from the inside. It has aged better than almost anything else here. On JioHotstar in India.

James Gunn took a talking raccoon and a walking tree and made the funniest and most sincere film in the franchise. It also proved Marvel could sell an audience on characters nobody outside comics shops had heard of. On JioHotstar in India.

The sequel that had to carry too much: a full-scale villain, the Vision, the Maximoff twins, and the seeds of Civil War, all in one film. It works in pieces rather than as a whole. On JioHotstar in India.

A heist comedy at the smallest scale the MCU had attempted, made after Edgar Wright left the project. Paul Rudd is the reason it lands, and the quantum realm it introduces becomes structurally important in Endgame. On JioHotstar in India.

An Avengers film in a Captain America film's clothing, and the moment the series stopped needing an external villain to generate conflict. It also introduces Black Panther and this continuity's Spider-Man. On JioHotstar in India.

The origin story that opened the magic side of the universe and, with it, the multiverse that Phases Four to Six have run on. Visually the most inventive film of Phase Three. On JioHotstar in India.

Gunn's sequel is about fathers, and it is the point at which the Guardians films became more emotionally serious than the rest of the franchise while staying funnier than any of it. On JioHotstar in India.

The first Spider-Man film made under the Sony-Marvel arrangement, and a deliberate reset to a high-school scale after two previous screen versions. The Sony deal is also why the Spider-Man films sit on different Indian platforms from the rest — this one is on Netflix, Prime Video and JioHotstar.

Taika Waititi rebuilt Thor as a comedy and saved the character. It is also, underneath the jokes, the film that destroys Asgard and sets up the opening of Infinity War. On JioHotstar in India.

The MCU's only Best Picture nominee and its most culturally significant release, with a villain in Killmonger whose argument the film takes seriously. On JioHotstar in India.

Eighteen films of setup delivered as a Thanos film in which the heroes lose. It remains the most audacious structural choice the franchise has made. On JioHotstar in India.

A small, pleasant caper released two months after Infinity War, which is a strange piece of scheduling until its end-credits scene connects the two. On JioHotstar in India.

Set in 1995, so in story order it sits second, right after The First Avenger. It fills in Nick Fury's history and the Tesseract's, and it exists mainly to put Carol Danvers on the board before Endgame. On JioHotstar in India.

The highest-grossing film of all time for two years and the end of the Infinity Saga. Twenty-two films land here, and the three-hour running time is spent paying off arcs rather than starting new ones. On JioHotstar in India.

The epilogue to Endgame, dealing with a world five years out of step with itself, plus Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. Like the other Spider-Man films it is spread across Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar and SonyLIV in India.

Delayed by the pandemic and released after its character's death, which is an awkward place to start a phase from. Taken on its own it is a decent spy thriller and it hands the Black Widow identity to Florence Pugh's Yelena. On JioHotstar in India.

The best-choreographed action in the MCU by a distance, and the film that finally explains the Ten Rings organisation seeded back in Iron Man. On JioHotstar in India.

Chloe Zhao's film is the most formally ambitious thing Marvel has released and the most divisive, covering seven thousand years and a cast of ten. Nothing in the franchise has picked its threads up since. On JioHotstar in India.

The multiverse film that worked, and the biggest box office event of the pandemic era. It is also the hinge for everything Phases Five and Six do with alternate realities. On JioHotstar and SonyLIV in India.

Sam Raimi directing a Marvel horror film, and requiring you to have watched the WandaVision series to understand its antagonist — the clearest example of the franchise's homework problem. On JioHotstar in India.

Waititi's second Thor film pushes the comedy past the point where the drama can survive it, though Christian Bale's Gorr is doing serious work in a film that keeps interrupting him. On JioHotstar in India.

Made after Chadwick Boseman's death and openly about grief, which gives it a weight the recasting question would have denied it. It introduces Namor and Riri Williams. On JioHotstar in India.

The film that was supposed to launch Kang as the next Thanos, and instead marks the point where the multiverse plan visibly wobbled. Watch it for the setup, not the film. On JioHotstar in India.

Gunn's farewell to the team and the best-reviewed MCU film of the 2020s, built around Rocket's backstory and a great deal of animal cruelty that the film refuses to soften. In India it is not on JioHotstar — the only listing is VI movies and tv, which is an odd place to find one of the franchise's high points.

The lowest-grossing MCU film, at 105 minutes the shortest, and better than its reputation — a body-swap comedy with Iman Vellani's Ms Marvel carrying most of it. Like Vol. 3 it is missing from JioHotstar in India and listed only on VI movies and tv.

The first R-rated MCU film, the year's biggest hit, and a two-hour argument about what happens to Fox's characters now that Disney owns them. It has no Indian subscription streaming home at the time of writing, which is remarkable for a film that made $1.3 billion — rental only.

Anthony Mackie's first film as Captain America, picking up the Thaddeus Ross thread that has been dormant since The Incredible Hulk. It is the second MCU film in a row with no Indian subscription home at the time of writing.

A team film about depression, which is not a sentence anyone expected to write about Marvel, and the strongest reviews the studio had received in years. The asterisk in the title is the joke and the point. On JioHotstar in India.

Marvel's fourth attempt at the Fantastic Four, set in a retro-futurist 1960s universe of its own, and the film that formally opens Phase Six. It ends by pointing directly at Doomsday. On JioHotstar in India.

The newest MCU film, out in cinemas at the end of July 2026 and now the second-highest-grossing film of the year worldwide. It is not streaming anywhere yet — a Sony-distributed Spider-Man film typically takes several months to reach Indian streaming, and when it does the Sony deal means it may not land on JioHotstar.