6 Superhero Movies That Feel Shakespearean, Ranked
Jessica is a young writer from Brisbane, Australia. An avid consumer and lover of all things Film and TV, you will never tear her away from a screen. A tendency rooted from childhood, she once had dreams of becoming a member of the famed kids-band 'Hi-5'. Perhaps that's what pushed her to secure an education with a theater background. But now, as dreams evolved, her passions have turned to admiring performances from afar. Frankly, she's just grateful that she can put her binging skills to good use. Outside of work, Jessica recently completed her undergraduate double degree in Arts/Communications. Other than that, she spends most of her free time with family and friends, probably never forgetting to talk about the new movie or show she watched the day prior.
Sign in to your Collider account
Superhero movies might be packed with capes, superpowers, and CGI battles, but plenty of them are also built around the kind of stories that William Shakespeare loved to write (yes, the great storyteller). Just look at the ambitious rulers, bitter family conflicts, doomed friendships, revenge seekers, or people making terrible decisions simply in the name of power.
Yes, strip away the masks and the magic, and some superheroes aren't all that different from Shakespeare’s tragic heroes. Intentional or not, there are some films that draw clear parallels with his famous plays, while others simply capture the same heartbreaking spirit. Either way, they are an extremely cathartic watch and should be celebrated.
6 'X-Men: First Class' (2011)
Set during the Cold War, mutants Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) unexpectedly form a close friendship while assembling a team of young mutants. Their mission: stop Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a powerful being who plans to manipulate the United States and the Soviet Union into nuclear war. But just as the crisis escalates, Charles and Erik's very different ideas about how mutants should deal with humanity begin to pull them apart.
When analyzing X-Men: First Class, it's clear that its strongest liturgical parallel is the tragic friendship between Charles and Erik. Like Shakespeare's Julius Caeser, the film centers on two men who begin as allies but are ultimately divided by competing visions of power and the future. Between Erik's thirst for revenge and Charles' belief in coexistence, both echo many Shakespearean heroes, whose personal lives (and wounds) gradually consume their relationships and reshape their lives.
5 'Logan' (2017)
In a near-future where mutants have almost gone extinct, an aging and increasingly frail Logan (Hugh Jackman) cares for the ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) while working as a chauffeur in Mexico. But their isolated existence is disrupted when a young mutant named Laura (Dafne Keen) arrives, pursued by a group of mercenaries who want to capture her. Soon enough, Logan reluctantly agrees to help Laura reach safety, even as this puts him and Charles in danger.
Like a Shakespearean tragic hero, Logan is a man who's defined by the sins and violence of his past. And while this may be disguised as a road movie, Logan is really a story that showcases his final journey in finding real meaning in life—especially for one that's been largely consumed by suffering. His relationship with Laura also molds this into a tragic father-and-child tale, as the embittered Logan gradually grows responsible for protecting her future. Stripping away the usual spectacle of the genre to focus on mortality, guilt, and legacy, perhaps you should just call Logan the King Lear of the superhero world.
4 'The Crow' (1994)
On the eve of their wedding, musician Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancée, Shelly (Sofia Shinas), are murdered by members of a violent gang. But one year later, Eric is somehow resurrected by a mysterious crow and returns to the streets of Detroit with one purpose: hunting the men responsible for their deaths.
There's something unmistakably Shakespearean about Eric's emotional (and supernatural) journey. Primarily speaking, his murder and resurrection recall Hamlet, where a murdered father returns as a ghost and sets his son on a path of revenge. However, in the case of The Crow, Eric is both Hamlet and the Ghost. Add in the doomed romance, gothic setting, morbidly poetic language, and the deep obsession for vengeance, and The Crow feels like it could exist in the dark R-rated corners of Shakespeare's imagination.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Superhero Team Should You Join? Avengers · X-Men · Teen Titans · The Boys
Every team is a personality test with a uniform. One saves the world and argues about it the whole way home. One has been fighting for the right to exist since the day it formed. One is still working out who it is while the fighting happens. And one has no powers at all, plus no intention of playing fair. Eight questions decide where you actually belong.
🛡️Avengers(Marvel Studios)
🧬X-Men(Marvel)
🐦Teen Titans(DC)
💊The Boys(Prime Video)
01
What kind of power would you actually want? The power matters less than what you would be willing to do with it.
02
Why join a team at all? Nobody puts on the suit for the reason they say out loud.
03
How do you feel about the people in charge? Every team has a chain of command. Very few of them survive contact.
04
What is your role inside a group? Every roster needs the same handful of people to function.
05
How do you win a fight you should lose? This is the scene the entire film gets built around.
06
What is this work costing you? Nobody does this for free. The bill just arrives differently for everyone.
07
How should the world see your team? Half of this job is public relations, and everybody knows it.
08
The offer arrives. What makes you say yes? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your team.
Recruitment Is Complete Your Team Is…
Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it would cost you to stay.
The Avengers
You belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart.
- The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process.
- You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the real entry requirement here.
- The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement, usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building.
- When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line.
The X-Men
You have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway.
- This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being wanted gone by the same people they keep saving.
- You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable.
- The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else to go and are never once asked to explain themselves.
- You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any.
The Teen Titans
You do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an inconvenient side effect.
- Every Titan is somebody's sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the villain of the week, is what the team is actually about.
- You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you, which is far less lonely than being the only one.
- The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more honest model of growing up than any other team here manages.
- The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours.
The Boys
You are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it.
- The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage, patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences.
- You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed not to mention.
- This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean.
- You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway.
3 'The Dark Knight' (2008)
Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) join forces to dismantle Gotham's organized crime. Unfortunately, their progress is disrupted by the arrival of the Joker (Heath Ledger), a criminal who wants to plunge Gotham into chaos and prove that its supposedly noble citizens are not as virtuous as they appear.
The Dark Knight has the bones of a Shakespearean tragedy, particularly in Harvey Dent's transformation from Gotham's idealistic "White Knight" into Two-Face. His fall is not simply the result of physical disfigurement, but from the destruction of his faith in justice. Think of how Macbeth's moral collapse began with a single turn, only for it to fully consume everything around him. On top of this, there's the film's exploration of fate, moral choice, and revenge, making this feel less like a conventional superhero adventure and more like a full-blown tragedy.
2 'Black Panther' (2018)
After the death of his father, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns to Wakanda to take his place as king and protector of the technologically advanced African nation. But his reign is soon challenged by Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), a mysterious outsider with a legitimate claim to the throne and a radically different vision for the future of Wakanda.
Like many on this list, Black Panther is a Shakespearean royal drama filtered through the superhero spectacle. For one, Killmonger is a classic challenger to the throne: an aggrieved relative who returns with a legitimate grievance, kills his way to power, and forces the rightful king into exile. It's basically Hamlet, with the struggle over who deserves to rule sprinkling in some elements of Macbeth. Luckily, this film showcases a more hopeful ending than most Shakespearean tragedies, with T'Challa choosing to break the cycle of vengeance and change the kingdom he has inherited.
1 'Thor' (2011)
While heir to the throne of Asgard, Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) reckless actions reignite an ancient conflict with the Frost Giants. Furious at his son's arrogance, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) strips Thor of his powers and banishes him to Earth, where he begins to understand what it actually means to be worthy of the throne. But, just as Thor grows closer to human scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) begins maneuvering for power.
It's difficult to get more Shakespearean than a story about an arrogant prince, a powerful king, a jealous brother, and a battle over the throne. If anything, that's probably why Kenneth Branagh was placed in the director's chair in the first place, with this family drama clearly resembling the tale King Lear. Inheritance and scheming siblings aside, all you have to do is listen to the grandeur of the dialogue. All that's really missing is the iambic pentameter. Tony Stark even made a joke about it in The Avengers. So yes, while the gods may have superpowers, their problems are Shakespearean in nature: pride, betrayal, and a messy succession.
Thor
- Release Date
- May 6, 2011
- Runtime
- 115 minutes
- Director
- Kenneth Branagh
- Writers
- Ashley Miller, Don Payne, Zack Stentz, J. Michael Straczynski, Mark Protosevich
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.