Here are the best superhero movies that came out before the MCU changed the game.
But First
So we’re all on the same page, the MCU, or Marvel Cinematic Universe, started in 2008 with Iron Man. Iron Man came out a few months before The Dark Knight, so The Dark Knight will not be on this list — though it is on this list of the all-time best superhero movies, including those in the MCU.
Also: All of these movies also came out before the DC Extended Universe, which started with 2011’s Man of Steel.
So you won’t see Batman vs Superman or any other Snyderverse films on this list of the Best Superhero Movies before the MCU. But you will see plenty of Batman and Superman, starting with…
Batman (1989)
Tim Burton had a complicated job in 1989: Most general audiences knew Batman as the campy caped crusader from the delightful ’60s TV show starring Adam West, but comic book audiences had come to revere him the gritty detective of Frank Miller’s masterful and wildly influential The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Batman: Year One (1987).
Burton and screenwriters Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren threaded the needle by combining the camp of the TV show (throaway jokes, Jack Nicholson’s garish joker) with an ultra-sincere, deeply wounded Batman and Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton). Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale serves as kind of an audiences surrogate, acknowledging the weirdness all around Gotham, while keeping things kind of grounded.
The film also paid homage to Batman’s 1939 roots with the slickly updated Art Deco set design.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
With Spider-Man 2, director Sam Raimi improved on his original with a story about power, responsibility, and giving as much as you can, whoever you are and whatever strengths you have or don’t have.
The story has real stakes thanks to the intense chemistry between Peter Parker/Spidey (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), and Alfred Molina is excellent as the tortured, power-mad Doc Ock. The subway sequence in which regular New Yorkers save a superhero is one of our favorites in any superhero movie.
X2: X-Men United (2003)
At the time of its release, 2003’s X-Men 2 came the closest to capturing the energy of the X-Men at their 1980s peak, as comics writer Chris Claremont put them through the emotional paces with a series of storylines that drew overt parallels between mutants and oppressed and ostracized human beings of all kinds.
X-Men 2 runs with the metaphor from its exhilarating openings scene of Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) invaded the Oval Office. And Brian Cox is menacingly flawless as Col. William Stryker, a very believable nemesis to our favorite band of mutants.
Superman (1978)
The film that started it all. Its earnestness and total reliance on practical effects — as well as stellar performances and moving love story between Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Superman, make it feel more charming and inspiring with each passing year.
Christopher Reeve will always be our Superman not just for his heroism, but for his comic chops — you get the sense that even when Luther (Gene Hackman) has him literally drowning in kryptonite, he’s still too much of a gentleman to bring his full superpowers to bear on his nemesis. He also had the least elaborate of all superhero costumes, yet felt the most like an actual superhero.
Fun fact: Margot Kidder starred in both the No. 1 movie of 1978 — Superman — and the No. 2 movie, The Amityville Horror
Also, Superman is the most romantic of all superhero movies, except for maybe…
Superman II (1980)
The early ’80s were a real wake up call for Gen X kids — first Han Solo was frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back, and then a few months later Superman lost his powers in Superman II. Or rather, he sacrificed his powers, in hopes of a normal life with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder).
The idea of a superhero willingly giving up his powers for love — and then sacrificing that love in order to save the world — was head-spinning for young fans who just wanted superman to be all-powerful. We all learned many lessons from Superman II.
Also: Kudos to writers Mario Puzo, David Newman and Leslie Newman (who worked on both Superman and Superman II) for bringing back General Zod (Terence Stamp) and his sidekicks, relatively minor players in the first Superman, as the villains of the second one. Did they plan that all along? Yes! The two films were shot fairly simultaneously. (Robert Benton was also a writer on the first Superman, but not the second.)
Batman Begins (2005)
The Batman franchise was in shambles after 1997’s Batman and Robin, and Christopher Nolan seemed an odd choice to revive it: He was best known for the low-budget indies Following and Memento, as well as Warner Bros’ Insomnia, all of which were fairly cerebral crime thrillers filled with questions about morality.
But that turned out to make him the perfect person to reinvent Batman and explain how the orphaned Bruce Wayne became the world’s greatest detective. Borrowing from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, Nolan imagined how Batman might come to exist in the real world, justifying every outlandish accoutrement, from his cape to his pointy ears.
Christian Bale was a perfect Bruce Wayne/Batman, and the rogue’s gallery was cast with old hands and rising indie stars like Cillian Murphy, who finally got a starring role in a Nolan film with Oppenheimer, nearly two decades after he played The Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
Batman Returns (1992)
A gloriously weird superhero movie imagines Batman as the stern ringmasters of a circus of grotesque characters, especially Danny DeVito’s Penguin. He also tries to tame a feral feline villain, Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer, pictured), and of course it all takes place at Christmas.
This is Tim Burton at his most demented and we love it.
Blade (1998)
Blade will soon join the MCU as Mahershala Ali dons the vampire hunter’s leather jacket, but original Blade Wesley Snipes deserves lots of credit — along with director Stephen Norrington and writer David S. Goyer — for showing us what a Marvel movie could be years before Spider-Man, the X-Men and the MCU ruled Hollywood.
And not a day passes that we don’t think about Snipes’ best line in the film: “Some mother—-er’s are always trying to ice skate uphill.”
It also has a proud place on our list of Great Black-Leather Action Movies.
Hulk (2003)
The third time was the charm for Marvel, when it cast Mark Ruffalo as a lovable Hulk in The Avengers after Eric Bana played the green-skinned goliath in 2003’s Hulk and Ed Norton took his shot in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, which was part of the MCU. (Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark turns up for a cameo that connects The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.)
Though largely forgotten thanks to the other Hulks, Ang Lee’s Hulk was a nuanced and ambitious film that tried to go beyond monster fights to tell a deeper story about childhood trauma. It’s not as fun as the best MCU movies, and the CGI isn’t as good.
But it is a very fresh take on a character well-known to audiences thanks to the Bill Bixby-Lou Ferrigno TV series and the three TV movies it inspired, and the cast, including Bana and Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross, was very solid.
The Rocketeer (1991)
The second Jennifer Connelly movie on our list, The Rocketeer is a throwback to the very earliest superhero movies — like the Batman and Superman serials that would play for pennies at the movie palaces of the 1940s.
Set in 1938, The Rocketeer is a gorgeously Art Deco styled caper about a young test pilot named Cliff (Billy Campbell) who finds a rocket pack that enables him to shoot through the air.
Timothy Dalton is fantastic as the scenery-chewing, Errol Flynn-mustchioed Neville Sinclair, who wants Cliff’s jet pack and his girl, the glamorous aspiring actress Jenny Blake, played by Jennifer Connelly in one of the early roles that signaled her career would soon take off like a, well, rocket.
I saw this in a theater as a 16-year-old boy, which is the ideal way to see it, if you can arrange that.
The Crow (1994)
Yes, it’s one of the best superhero movies before the MCU, and one of the best superhero movies, period. But it’s also very hard for us to watch: Star Brandon Lee was accidentally killed by a prop gun after filming, 20 years after the death of his father, Bruce Lee. The tragedy casts a pall over a movie that was dark to begin with.
Still: The Crow has a brilliantly moody goth aesthetic and undeniable power, and took a big swing at a time when superhero movies were rarely this gloomy and disruptive.
Lee is excellent as Eric Draven, a rock star who is resurrected after the murder of him and his girlfriend and guided by a crow to seek justice. We wish he could have starred in many more films.
Spider-Man (2002)
Obviously we wouldn’t include Spider-Man 2 without including Sam Raimi’s original, featuring one of the most iconic movie kisses of any genre — not just superhero movies.
We were very happy to see original cinematic Spider-Man Tobey Maguire return to the fold in the latest MCU Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Maguire’s Peter Parker teamed up with fellow spider-actors Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland.
The Incredibles (2004)
Pixar’s The Incredibles is somehow both the best superhero movie for family viewing… and a dark deconstruction of superhero tropes.
(Note that Mr. Incredible bails out on the business because of legal threats, not because of bad guys.)
The animation is groundbreaking and stellar, combining dynamic character design with Art Deco touches that harken back to the days of Batman and Superman. It’s funny, it’s sweeping, it’s curiously dark. The grainy black-and-white rescue segment takes it to a daring new level. It’s a super movie in every way.
Liked This List of the Best Superhero Movies Before the MCU?
You might also like this list of sequels that were better than the originals, or this list of 12 Rad ’80s Movies Only Cool Kids Rememeber.
Main image: The Rocketeer. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
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