Iron Man

Essential, and start here, whatever the chronological order on this page offers. Captain America and Captain Marvel sit earlier in the timeline and neither is the right door: this is the film that sets the house tone, and the thirty seconds after its credits are the moment the whole project becomes a project.

It was made in circumstances nobody would repeat. Marvel had mortgaged its characters to fund its own films, Robert Downey Jr. was uninsurable and had to screen-test, and Jon Favreau has described shooting without a finished script, with the cast improvising scenes on the day. The looseness is the asset: Downey talks over people, trails off and changes his mind, and no superhero lead had sounded like that before.

The first act is still the best thing in Phase One. A weapons manufacturer gives a presentation in a desert, is attacked with his own product, and spends three months in a cave building an escape with a man who dies for him. The sequence where he tests flight in a garage and keeps crashing is comedy doing character work.

The third act is the weakness and sets a habit the franchise took a decade to break: a larger version of the hero's suit, in a car park, at night. Jeff Bridges is good and underwritten. Watch it first.