Tier List
X-Men Movies Tier List: All 14 Films Ranked (2026)
All 14 films in Fox's X-Men saga, from the 2000 original through Logan, the Deadpool trilogy, and Deadpool & Wolverine, ranked from S-tier to D-tier. Then build your own X-Men tier list with head-to-head comparisons.
The Complete X-Men Tier List
The X-Men franchise practically invented the modern superhero movie, and then spent two decades veering from all-time greats to legendary misfires. Across 14 films and multiple timelines, it gave us Logan, the Deadpool trilogy, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, sometimes within a few years of each other. Here's every Fox-era X-Men film ranked into classic S/A/B/C/D tiers. Disagree with where First Class landed? Settle it yourself in minutes with Shortlist.
Logan
(2017)The greatest X-Men film and one of the best superhero movies ever made. A bleak, R-rated western that gives Hugh Jackman's Wolverine the elegiac send-off he deserved. Earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay.
X2: X-Men United
(2003)Bryan Singer's sequel perfected the formula: the Nightcrawler White House opening, Magneto's prison break, and a near-perfect ensemble. The high point of the original era.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
(2014)A time-travel epic that united the original and First Class casts and soft-rebooted the timeline. The Quicksilver kitchen sequence alone is worth the price of admission.
Deadpool
(2016)The R-rated, fourth-wall-breaking gamble that became a phenomenon. Ryan Reynolds was born to play Wade Wilson, and its success rewrote the rulebook for comic-book movies.
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Our top 5, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then show you where you disagree with us.
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X-Men: First Class
(2011)A stylish 1960s reboot built on the electric Xavier-Magneto dynamic between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Re-energized the franchise after Origins.
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)The Merc with a Mouth crashes the MCU and drags a reluctant Wolverine along. A loving, cameo-stuffed sendoff to the Fox X-Men era and a box-office juggernaut.
X-Men
(2000)The film that kicked off the modern superhero era. It took comic-book movies seriously and proved an ensemble of mutants could anchor a blockbuster. Hugely influential.
Deadpool 2
(2018)Bigger, funnier, and home to the X-Force gag. Introduces Cable and Domino while keeping the meta humor sharp, even if it lacks the freshness of the original.
The Wolverine
(2013)A grounded, Japan-set character study that course-corrected after Origins. The bullet-train fight is a highlight; the third act is where it stumbles.
X-Men: The Last Stand
(2006)Brett Ratner's entry fumbled the beloved Dark Phoenix Saga and killed off characters carelessly. Some big set pieces, but a disappointing close to the original trilogy.
X-Men: Apocalypse
(2016)A bloated villain movie with a muddy CGI finale. Oscar Isaac is wasted under heavy makeup, though the second Quicksilver sequence is a bright spot.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(2009)Infamous for botching Deadpool by sewing his mouth shut. A muddled origin story widely considered the franchise low point, until two more challengers arrived.
Dark Phoenix
(2019)A second, equally unsuccessful crack at the Dark Phoenix Saga. A flat, troubled production that limped the Fox era to a close at the box office.
The New Mutants
(2020)A horror-tinged spin-off stuck in release limbo for years. Interesting ideas, but it arrived as an afterthought and landed with little impact.
How to Build Your Own X-Men Tier List
You just built one. The card above sorted five from your taps, which covers the calls nobody fights about: Logan and X2 high, Origins and Dark Phoenix low.
The huge, messy middle is where the real debates live, and it starts below the five you just sorted. Where does Deadpool & Wolverine land against the films it spends two hours making fun of? Is The Wolverine better than its reputation? Does Apocalypse outrank The Last Stand? Shortlist ranks all 14 the same head-to-head way, across two decades and several timelines, and gives you a share link at the end.
Read more about the comparison-based approach in our movie tier list guide.
Two different things get scored around this page. The S to D tiers above are editorial, and S means a film that held up rather than one that reviewed well on opening weekend. The score you see in the app is a different number: it is built from the head-to-head comparisons you make, scaled to 0 to 10, not from critic averages. How Shortlist scores work sets out the whole method.
What Order Should You Watch the X-Men Movies In?
The X-Men timeline is famously tangled. For the simplest experience, watch in release order. For a chronological run, start with the prequels: First Class (1962), Days of Future Past (1973), Apocalypse (1983), Dark Phoenix (1992): then the original trilogy (X-Men, X2, The Last Stand), followed by the standalone Wolverine films ending with Logan. The Deadpool films sit loosely alongside, with Deadpool & Wolverine bridging into the MCU.
X-Men Tier List FAQ
What is the best X-Men movie?
Logan (2017) is the most common pick, a critically acclaimed, R-rated character drama that earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. X2: X-Men United (2003) and Days of Future Past (2014) are the usual runners-up.
How many X-Men movies are there?
The Fox X-Men universe includes 14 films: the original trilogy, the three Wolverine solo films, the four First Class-era prequels, The New Mutants, and the three Deadpool movies (counting Deadpool & Wolverine, which carried the saga into the MCU).
Are the Deadpool movies part of the X-Men franchise?
Yes, the Deadpool films were produced under Fox's X-Men license and feature mutants like Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Cable. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) explicitly closes out the Fox era while folding the characters into Marvel Studios' MCU.
What is the worst X-Men movie?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and Dark Phoenix (2019) are the usual picks for the bottom, with The New Mutants (2020) close behind. Origins is especially infamous for its botched version of Deadpool. It's exactly the kind of debate a head-to-head ranking is built to settle.
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The Reel
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What to watch, what to skip, and where it lands on the rankings. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Just want the tier sheet? Download it free, no email needed.
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