Every 2025 Comic Book Movie, Ranked Worst To Best

The box office results might not suggest as much, but 2025 provided some good eating for comic book movie fans. The cinematic arm of the DCU launched with a confident, charming Superman, the MCU grew by three new chapters, and there was even a Marvel Comics movie that most people wouldn’t realize was one (technically). At the same time, inevitably, there was more talk of the bubble bursting and box office contraction affecting the genre disproportionately, but we’re still talking a billion-dollar industry here. And judging by some of the great creative moments we’ve seen this year, the quality isn’t dropping as much as you may have been led to believe.

And it’s not like it’s slowing down: Marvel’s 2026 slate includes no fewer than 7 releases, and DC fans have both Supergirl and Clayface to look forward to. Taking in only the live-action comic book movies of 2025, this is how the year has gone, and which of the big two won the ultimate accolade.

5. The Toxic Avenger

The weird stepbrother of the 2025 comic book movie family, The Toxic Avenger was always going to be more of a tough sell next to the mainstream releases. But that’s sort of the point: Toxie (this time voiced by Peter Dinklage and physically performed by Luisa Guerreiro) as a character is not for everyone, and so the reboot follows. It still has its moments: it’s silly, gory, and delights in its oddball status – it just doesn’t go quite as far as you might expect for a movie consciously marketed as Unrated.

I’ve loved some Troma movies in my time, but their charm is often in the obvious lack of budget – like the pre-reboot days of Doctor Who, where the set wobbling was a pleasant quirk. The original Toxic Avenger was almost the poster boy for Lloyd Kaufman’s shocksploitation manifesto, with a grubby, cobbled-together spirit. The reboot, meanwhile, is a lot more glossy and obviously higher budget, and as much as it’s surprisingly watchable, it’s not really what Troma fans signed up for. And if you’re going to say this isn’t a comic book movie because the Marvel Comics run came after the original movie, maybe just relax.

4. Captain America: Brave New World

Let’s get right to it: Brave New World is far better than the preposterous Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score suggests. I can’t even account for that, other than suggesting collective tomfoolery or sudden onset Red Hulk hysteria, but I can argue against it. It’s far from a perfect movie, and you can see the reshoots and removed plot lines way more than you can with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but it’s still a good time.

Anthony Mackie is a great hero and a good candidate for a prominent role in the next Avengers movies, and his fight with Harrison Ford’s Red Hulk is well worth the wait. The plot also offers intriguing continuations of several MCU loose ends in a way that actually feels more organic than it probably should. I will never accept that the stinger’s attempt to tie to incursions and Doom’s invasion of the main timeline makes any sense, but if you ignore that, there’s still a lot to like here.

3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Considering how mishandled at least two of the three major Fantastic Four movies were (the unreleased one doesn’t count), you’d have a pretty good case to suggest Marvel’s First Family were a hard nut to crack. But then, watch Matt Shakman’s wonderful retro-futuristic apocalypse-panic and you’d wonder what all the fuss was about. Buoyed by an exceptional cast, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is compelling, charming, and carries just the right spirit of adventure.

It feels like Pedro Pascal took a mauling during the marketing run, because people can’t behave themselves online properly anymore, but his Reed Richards is a great candidate to lead the MCU in Robert Downey Jr’s absence (when he departs again). Both men’s characters are flawed, fragile geniuses with hearts radiating out of their chests, after all. The rest of the main four – Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn -already feel like megastars in the MCU, and I can’t wait to see them again in Doomsday. Hopefully, their haunting CGI baby won’t be quite so jarring by then. And of course, a note to both Julia Garner and Ralph Ineson, who not only looked great, but managed to reclaim two of Marvel’s best characters from the clown-school scrapheap Fox sent them to.

2. Superman

James Gunn had the weight of the world’s expectations on his shoulders when he took up the most poisoned chalice in Hollywood with Superman. Or at least that’s what the various online narratives would have had you believe. In reality, making a great Superman movie is pretty easy, as long as you nail the casting, the story, the balance, the effects, and the intangible spirit of hope. So, actually, maybe there is something to be said of the pressure.

Anyway, Gunn managed it remarkably well, somehow balancing a universe that already felt lived-in and populated by heroes and villains and still telling an intimate story about Clark Kent and Lois Lane. David Corenswet is the third perfectly-cast Superman, Rachel Brosnahan is the best Lois, and the ensemble cast – particularly Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor and Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner were genius additions. The story zips along, the world-building is brilliant, and overall, Superman set a great tone for the emerging DCU.

1. Thunderbolts*

Where Superman had hope, the tragically under-supported Thunderbolts* seemed to be a more downbeat affair, exploring mental health issues in a more nuanced way than any Marvel release really has any right to. Stunt marketing and the New Avengers label were ultimately just distractions that failed to sell a perversely intimate story about personal struggles with some genuinely tear-jerking moments.

It’s hard, even now, to pick out the best parts without cruelly overlooking the sum of the movie: Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, and Lewis Pullman’s Bob/Sentry are exceptional, but this is an ensemble affair that soars on collaboration. Thunderbolts* is boldly creative, bravely self-contained, and remarkably manages to redeem two of the MCU’s most mishandled characters in US Agent (Wyatt Russell) and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). Yes, Taskmaster was skrewed, and yes, we would all have liked to see a bit more Bucky, but it’s a joyous movie that deserved way more than its paltry box office performance.

It may be controversial to place Thunderbolts* above Superman, but context matters. In the latter’s case, it had so much riding on it that it’s dangerous to overinflate, and for the former, the weight of the MCU was a burden that had to be shaken off. But Thunderbolts* story stayed with me longer than Superman‘s, and the performances resonated more, and I’m sure it will be different for a lot of people. But seeing broken people save the world is just a little more magic to me than even the most human-like god.

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