The 6 Best MCU Movies Released Between 'Endgame' and 'Doomsday'

Published Oct 13, 2026, 12:45 PM EDT

Jeremy has more than 2800 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Iron Man, and then there were three phases' worth of movies that felt like they were concluded with the appropriately titled Avengers: Endgame. Technically, Spider-Man: Far From Home was the last Phase 3 movie, but it was more of an epilogue – and a little lighter overall – than the more climactic Avengers: Endgame. Endgame was not the actual end, though, because after 2020 (which saw the release of nothing MCU-related), Phase 4, the beginning of The Multiverse Saga, kicked off with maybe too much stuff? There were four movies in 2021, and then a bunch of shows, and there was an emphasis on quantity over quality for several subsequent years, too.

It’s been a bit rocky on the way to Avengers: Doomsday, but there is sufficient hype around that late 2026 release, at the time of writing, and then its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars might well end up being even bigger (it depends on how bold or cliffhanger-heavy the ending to Doomsday is). Nothing since Avengers: Endgame has been as good – or as satisfying – as Avengers: Endgame, but these are the movies that came closest. If you're pressed for time and want to rewatch some movies in the lead-up to Doomsday, but not all, then the following six could well be worth prioritizing.

6 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' (2021)

Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

There were some familiar faces that showed up in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but not that many, especially if you discount cameos. That feels worth pointing out because the other movies that have been highlights of the post-Endgame run of movies have been sequels to movies from the first three phases or, in the case of a certain 2025 film, something that took a whole bunch of supporting characters from Phases 3 and 4 and made them make up their own team. Shang-Chi, though, is a new central character, and maybe the best completely new hero to headline his own movie in The Multiverse Saga?

It's got some very high-quality action, especially in its first half, and has its own distinct identity thanks to oftentimes feeling like a martial arts/wuxia sort of film.

And that does make it frustrating that he’s only had that one movie, but hey, it’s still a very good one, and he’s set to have a role in Avengers: Doomsday, and then a Shang-Chi 2 eventually hasn’t been ruled out yet either, so one can hope. As for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, it’s got some very high-quality action, especially in its first half, and has its own distinct identity thanks to oftentimes feeling like a martial arts/wuxia sort of film, but with a superhero component added to the proceedings. It’s not perfect, but it is a very enjoyable film, and yeah, they'd be silly not to try and get a sequel off the ground (for real) at some point, too.

5 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' (2021)

Image via Marvel Studios

The MCU's Spider-Man has been reliable, ever since 2017’s Homecoming, and the character’s remained enjoyable whenever he’s shown up in a crossover movie (see Captain America: Civil War, and both the third and fourth Avengers movies). People do really seem to respond well to Spider-Man as well, of course, but you can go back to the Spider-Man movies made before Tom Holland’s take on the character joined the MCU. These movies have always been popular, and have just about always been consistent crowd-pleasers, too.

So, Spider-Man: No Way Home was an inevitable slam-dunk, because it made use of the Multiverse stuff in a big way by having old Spider-Men and some already-established villains from other universes show up, making for one of the biggest non-Avengers crossover movies to date. It is not a perfect movie by any means, nor one of the most visually/narratively exciting of the MCU, but Spider-Man: No Way Home is a lot of broad fun, and that’s enough. It’s a good time, and it’s easy to fondly remember how watching it for the first time felt, too.

4 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' (2022)

Image via Marvel Studios

After the first movie in 2018, another Black Panther was a given, owing to that one’s critical acclaim and popularity, but Chadwick Boseman passed away in 2020, and so a different approach had to be taken for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He could've been recast, or they could've had the character pass away with Boseman, and the latter was chosen, which made for a rather heavy film. The characters spend almost the whole movie grieving T’Challa and facing new problems without him, and similarly, it’s hard not to grieve Chadwick Boseman as an actor throughout all 2.5+ hours of this film.

It is appropriately emotional, as a result, but not completely despairing, since there is still spectacle alongside some moments of catharsis here. It’s a messier and more sprawling movie than the first Black Panther, but the emotional highs of Wakanda Forever are undeniable, and enough to make it a more than worthy follow-up. A new Black Panther has been announced, which will potentially reset things a little like what a recasting might've done, but it felt like the right call to not jump into doing that straight away, giving a proper farewell to both T’Challa and Chadwick Boseman.

3 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' (2023)

Image via Marvel Studios

So, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are usually quite different tonally from what something like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was presenting, though Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is admittedly a little darker than the first two. There are some things that happened in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame that the Guardians are all processing, not to mention a surprisingly dark backstory for Rocket Raccoon, making a good chunk of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 feel bleak. It’s tonally chaotic, because there are still plenty of comedic moments, and then things get a bit sappy towards the end.

But at the same time, the squad’s been through a lot, both in the James Gunn-directed movies and the Avengers films they played a part in, so seeing them all get to have more or less happy endings felt well-earned. The Gunn era feels over, not to mention well and truly concluded within a trilogy, but there is always the capacity for some members of the Guardians team to show up again. If none of them ever did, though, or if only a couple had cameos at some point, then that’d probably be okay. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a scattershot but compelling crowd-pleaser and conclusion for the team, and it’s definitely one of the easiest MCU films of the past half-decade or so to like.

2 'Thunderbolts*' (2025)

Thanks to Thunderbolts*, it’s hard to call Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings the sole movie of the MCU’s post-Endgame era that successfully launched a new character and (hopefully) ongoing storyline. Like, Thunderbolts* is about a team of unlikely superheroes, almost all of them being supporting characters from previous MCU shows and movies, but they're all brought together here and form the titular squad, though by the end of the movie… well, it’s not a spoiler anymore, right? The whole reveal that they're actually coined The New Avengers, though it remains to be seen how much that name actually sticks going forward. It was a fun gimmick, having the title with the asterisk, but it might've hurt interest in Thunderbolts* at the time.

Also, post-Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and before Thunderbolts*, the MCU was a rough series to be invested in. The Marvels wasn’t great, Deadpool & Wolverine honestly wasn’t all that good (kind of mindless fun at best, but it didn’t really have staying power), and Captain America: Brave New World was pretty shoddy. Thunderbolts* injected some energy into the whole MCU for sure, but it came out after a run of movies that weren’t great (and 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder as well as 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania also hurt the cinematic universe), so people saw a bunch of half-rate characters all in one movie, and it didn’t look interesting. It is interesting, though. It is perhaps the best of the MCU movies between Avengers #4 and #5 (these movies aren’t ranked, in case you haven’t noticed, since they’ve been addressed in order of release and all).

1 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' (2026)

Image via Sony Pictures

Somehow, Spider-Man: Brand New Day ended up being an even bigger event than Spider-Man: No Way Home, being enough of a critical and commercial slam-dunk that Avengers: Doomsday could serve as a mere victory lap for 2026, not matching Brand New Day, and the year would still probably stand as one that saw the MCU properly make a comeback. Well, Spider-Man: Brand New Day could've been the only MCU movie of 2026, and that would still feel accurate. Like, Deadpool & Wolverine was the only MCU movie of 2024, and that had people saying “The MCU’s back,” even with it being not quite as good and also not as much of a box office juggernaut.

It’s also nice that Peter Parker/Spider-Man got some time alone in the spotlight in this film, after getting overshadowed, to some extent, by other MCU characters in his other films. There are still big supporting characters here, like The (literally big) Hulk and the introduction of a certain mutant who'll become important by the time the MCU X-Men movies start being made, but Brand New Day was a brand new day for Spider-Man as the undisputed central figure of his own movie, and it really wouldn’t be surprising to see him become even more at the forefront of the MCU going forward, beyond this.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

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