Doctor Strange

Essential on position rather than quality: it introduces the Time Stone, the sanctums and a character who is central to Infinity War and Phase Four. As a film it is the most conventional origin of Phase Three.

The structure is Iron Man's exactly. An arrogant specialist is broken by an accident, travels somewhere remote, is taught by people he initially dismisses, and returns with a new role. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a man who is deeply unpleasant for the first forty minutes, which the film underlines and then quietly drops.

What is genuinely new is the look. The mirror dimension sequences, with cities folding into themselves, and the astral projection scenes are the most inventive imagery Marvel had attempted, and the final confrontation is resolved not by a fight but by a man allowing himself to be killed repeatedly until a cosmic entity finds it tedious. Ending a superhero film with the hero winning through sheer stubbornness is a good joke well told.

The casting of the Ancient One drew sustained and justified criticism, and the studio's explanation about avoiding a different stereotype satisfied very few people. Tilda Swinton is excellent in the part and that does not resolve the objection. Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo has the most interesting arc and the franchise has never followed it up.