X-Men Movies in Order: Release, Timeline and Runtimes (2026)

The Short Answer

Watch in release order the first time. This franchise spent seventeen years reintroducing its own characters, and almost every good scene in it is a reveal about someone you already met. X-Men: First Class is a story about how two friends became enemies, which only works if you have already watched them be enemies. Release order is 14 films and 28h 1m.

There is no single chronological order, and that is not a technicality. X-Men: Days of Future Past sends a character back to 1973 to change history, and it succeeds. The films made before it describe a past that the films made after it say never happened. Any list that numbers all 14 films from 1 to 14 and labels it "the timeline" is publishing a claim the films contradict. This page prints the order and the split.

If you want the story and not the completionism, there is a shorter route. 9 of the 14 films belong to a shared history, and they run 18h 15m. Add Logan as the ending and it is 20h 32m, against 28h 1m for everything.

Which X-Men Movie Is Actually the Best?

The order is answerable. The ranking never is, so before the lists here it is as five head-to-head choices: the first film of each of the five eras. Tap the one you prefer and your ranking builds itself, which is the whole of what Shortlist does, across everything you watch.

Make your tier list right here

Five films, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then label it S through D.

Which do you prefer?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009

VS

X-Men

2000

Tap your favorite

X-Men Movies in Release Order

All 14 Fox-era films, oldest to newest. Runtimes are theatrical cuts, read from each film's Wikipedia infobox.

The 3 Wolverine solo films are 6h 10m of that and the 3 Deadpool films are 5h 55m. The longest film in the franchise is X-Men: Apocalypse at 2h 24m; the shortest is The New Mutants at 1h 34m.

X-Men Movies in Chronological Order

The same 14 films by the year they are set in, from 1962 to 2029. The badge on each row is the version of history that film belongs to, which is the part this list cannot leave out.

Read it top to bottom and it looks like one story. It is not. The rows badged Original timeline and the rows badged Revised timeline are two different pasts, and no viewing order can make them into one.

The Two Timelines, and Where They Split

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the hinge. Its whole plot is an attempt to change 1973, and at the end of it the change has taken: characters who were dead are alive, and the events of the original trilogy have not happened. Everything Fox made afterwards is set in the rewritten version.

That gives the franchise two complete routes, and they share a beginning rather than an ending. The original timeline is 7 films and 13h 57m: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Wolverine. The revised timeline is 4 films and 8h 41m: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix. X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past are in both, because they happen before the split or across it.

Neither route is the canonical one. If you want the films most people mean when they say X-Men, take the original timeline. If you want the cast the later films were built around, take the revised one. Watching both is 18h 15m rather than the sum of the two, because the 2 shared films are only watched once.

The Main Story Order

The shortest honest route through the connected story: the 9 films that belong to a shared history, in release order, with Logan kept at the end. It is 20h 32m against 28h 1m for all 14.

In release order rather than story order, and that is this page's own argument applied to its own recommendation. These 9 films span the divergence, so ordering them by the year they are set in plays Dark Phoenix in the middle of a trilogy it says never happened. A route through both timelines at once is exactly the thing the two sections above say does not exist, so this one does not pretend to be one.

What comes out is the 14 films minus the five that answer to nobody: the 3 Deadpool films, The New Mutants and Logan. Logan is then put back at the end, and it is the one entry here that the data says stands apart. It is on the list anyway because it is the ending everyone means. Mangold's film pins itself to no version of the past and its 2029 contradicts both, so calling it part of either timeline would be a tidier claim than the film supports. It is still where this story stops.

So Which Order Should You Actually Watch?

Where Deadpool Fits

Beside all of it. The 3 Deadpool films (5h 55m) are set in the same world and refer to the same characters, and they decline to say which version of the past they are in, which is a joke the films make on purpose. Nothing in either timeline depends on them and nothing in them depends on either timeline. Watch them wherever you like, in their own order, and note that Deadpool & Wolverine assumes you have seen Logan.

The New Mutants is the other film outside both. It was shot as a spin-off, released two years late into a franchise that had already been sold, and it connects to nothing before or after it. It is 1h 34m and it is optional in a way no other film here is.

Do You Need to Watch These Before the New Marvel X-Men?

No. Marvel Studios is rebooting these characters, and a reboot is a new continuity by definition: nothing in the 14 films above is required reading for it. The reason to watch them is that four or five of them are genuinely good, not that a future film will quiz you. If you want to argue about which four, our X-Men movies tier list ranks every one of them.

X-Men Watch Order FAQ

What order should I watch the X-Men movies in?

Release order for a first watch. The franchise spent seventeen years reintroducing its own characters, and its best scenes are reveals about people you have already met: X-Men: First Class is the story of how two friends became enemies, which only lands if you have watched them be enemies first. All 14 Fox-era films in release order run 28h 1m.

Is there a chronological order for the X-Men movies?

Not a single one, and this is the part most guides skip. X-Men: Days of Future Past changes history in 1973 and succeeds, so the films made before it describe a past the films made after it say never happened. You can watch every film in order of the year it is set, from 1962 to 2029, but two stretches of that list are alternative versions of the same decades rather than one continuous story.

What are the two X-Men timelines?

The original timeline is 7 films and 13h 57m: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Wolverine. The revised timeline, the one Days of Future Past writes instead, is 4 films and 8h 41m: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix. The films they share happen before the split or across it, which is why both lists start the same way.

How many X-Men movies are there and how long are they?

14 Fox-era films, running 28h 1m back to back. The shorter route is the 9 films that belong to a shared history, which is 18h 15m, or 20h 32m with Logan kept as the ending. Watch those in release order: they span the divergence, so there is no story order that holds them together.

Where do the Deadpool movies fit in the X-Men order?

Beside it rather than inside it. The 3 Deadpool films (5h 55m) are set in the same world and decline to say which version of the past they belong to, which is a joke the films make deliberately. Nothing in either timeline depends on them. Watch them in their own order whenever you like, with one caveat: Deadpool and Wolverine assumes you have seen Logan.

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