Superhero movies have been a dominant driving force at the box office for most of the 21st Century, but with each passing year, the genre grows bigger and more prolific as studios crank up their output to build interconnected universes all their own. Which means 2016 was the biggest year yet, with a whopping six major superhero releases. (For the purpose of this article, we're only looking at films released in America, and comic book adaptations only -- so you won't find the toy-based Max Steel or international titles like the excellent R-rated Italian spin on the genre, The Call Me Jeeg Robot). Despite murmurs about "superhero fatigue" the genre is stronger than ever, and the theatrical schedules for the coming years are lined up to match and exceed this year's output.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For now, we're taking a look back on the superhero films of 2016, ranked from worst to best. If you're keeping an eye out for themes, there aren't too many to be shared throughout the lot, but 2016 seems to have been the year of superhero on superhero violence -- The Avengers had their Civil War, Batman and Superman battled down, and even the mutants of the X-Men were locked more in a war with each other rather than the humans trying to control them. 2016 was also a major year for expansion and introduction. Warner Bros.' DCEU officially launched, Deadpool finally got his day, the MCU welcomed Spider-Man and Black Panther, and the X-Men introduced a new generation of young mutants to lead the franchise forward.
If the year was diverse in themes, it was also wide-ranging in quality, so let's get down to brass tacks and take a look at our breakdown of the year's releases from worst to best. To determine the rankings, we polled the Collider editorial staff for their own personal power ranking for this year in superhero movies, which were then tallied up using a preferential balloting system. (Our #1 picks earned 6 points, #2 earned 5 points, etc). Some interesting common threads -- all but one voter picked Deadpool for the #2 spot, and likewise, all but one selected Batman v Superman as the weakest of the bunch.
Find our ranked list below and be sure to sound off in the comments (respectfully, if at all possible) with your own personal list.
6. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Batman v Superman is just a drag. Zach Snyder's Man of Steel follow-up was almost universally panned by critics and met with a split response from fans. Unfortunately, it's easy to see why. It's bleak, joyless, and a bit disrespectful to the lineage of both characters. And, to address a common complaint, that's not me saying all superhero movies need to be fun. I genuinely like Watchmen and that movie is the skim milk of fun. But Synder's fascination lies in the "reality" of superheroes, in so much as they are human beings underneath it all, capable of selfishness, self-righteousness, and yes, murder. So much murder. It's not that Snyder's vision isn't a compelling idea, though the film also suffers from a narrative slog that points to technical problems on a filmmaking level, but that vision is applied to the wrong property. His very concept of heroism and his determination to deconstruct mythology defies what makes both of his leading heroes great.
On top of that, Batman v Superman's generic big bad, Doomsday, fundamentally underserves the 'Death of Superman' arc, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor is a wildly misguided if cleverly conceived modernization of the classic character, there's too much tacked-on Justice League set-up, and for a film titled Batman v Superman, it's woefully low on the standoff action we came to see.
But Batman v Superman isn't entirely without merit. For one, it's carried by the performances. Henry Cavill and Amy Adams are still poised to be great as Superman and Lois Lane, they're just misemployed. Likewise, Ben Affleck can double down as Batman and Bruce Wayne, and sell both. And Gal Godot makes an excellent, if underserved Wonder Woman, easily cementing her introduction as the highlight of the film. Batman v Superman is also beautifully shot, as Snyder's films always are, by his 300, Sucker Punch and Watchmen DP Larry Fong. But unfortunately, imagery and acting aren't enough to clean up the overall mess, and Batman v Superman earns its spot as the most disappointing superhero entry this year with every misspent minute.
5. Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad may have been doomed to fail from the start. It had too many cooks and not nearly enough time. Casting Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn was a piece of genius, Will Smith is exactly the kind of guy that can charm you into empathizing with a mass murderer like Deadshot, and David Ayer makes a perfect helmer for a morally-grey street fight. All those pieces play their part well, but Suicide Squad never recovers from being undercooked and over-manipulated. Set against a predetermined release date, Suicide Squad had a rushed pre-production and the resulting lack of cohesive vision cripples the film's better qualities before they can get off the ground. It doesn't help that it was reportedly subject to multiple cuts after the tonally misleading trailers resonated with audiences. What we get in the aftermath is a structurally confounding film that delivers exciting action and striking performances in the midst of narrative chaos.
On top of being riddled with problems, it's straight up problematic. Enchantress is a cultural mess of gyrating generic villainy, the great Harley Quinn is reduced to a brainwashed puppet, and Killer Croc is reduced to a staggering stereotype. To top it off, Jared Leto's Joker is insufferable. Like Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman, it's a clever spin on a classic character that's poorly rendered. He's smartly updated and brashly seductive, and as Leto made sure everyone knows, the actor really gave it his all. But he loses the character's magic. Unlike previous incarnations of the Joker, he doesn't draw you in with his madness, he makes you bristle and pull away. Ultimately, he's not a very big part of the movie, but he's such a big part of the mythology that it still packs a sting.
Fortunately, if Suicide Squad never fully delivers on its promise, it points to a promising future. Robbie and Smith are excellent, easily capable of headlining their own films and hopefully co-starring many times more. Viola Davis' Amanda Waller is utterly terrifying (if scripted to be bafflingly stupid), and she poses a fine counterpoint of truly selfish evil opposite our bad guys gone good. There are also a few great action set-pieces that highlight Ayer's talent for combat cinema. But, as a whole, Suicided Squad is a hastily wrought mess of a little good mixed with a lot of bad.
4. X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Apocalypse is probably one of the goofiest movies to come out this year, but in an unintentional and uncomfortable way. There's a certain charm to it, at times. It's colorful, and occasionally playful, but X-Men has always function best when it unites its occasionally fractured heroes and Apocalypse is determined to drive them apart for most of the film. Our heroes narratives are largely kept isolated from each other in insular blocks until they unconvincingly coalesce in the genre-mandated epic finale.
On a broader level, Apocalypse is a film that represents a fascinating moment where the franchise is on the brink of evolving, but hasn't quite yet. It feels narratively beholden to the leading characters of its trilogy -- Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique, Michael Fassbender's Magneto, James McAvoy's Professor X, and Nicholas Hoult's Beast -- while trying to introduce the next generation led by Sophie Turner's Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan's Cyclops, and Kodi Smitt-McPhee's Nightcrawler. But it invests too heavily in the past over the future. The new class of mutants gives the film its moments of life and shine, while our "First Class" seems to have largely lost interest, but because the film is so preoccupied with continuing long arcs, it short-shrifts its best attributes. Apocalypse finds X-Men as a franchise looking back right on the brink of becoming something delightful. But at least there was another great scene for Evan Peters' Quicksilver.
And then there's the blatant misuse of Oscar Isaac, who looks like a dip-dyed Blue Meanie and expresses nothing beyond a peculiar fashion sense and taste for destruction. His powers have no logic, his motivation is weak, and his personality absent. As we saw with Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad before on this list, a film is hard-pressed to rise above such a mediocre and interchangeable villain. His inherent emptiness robs our favorite characters of a worthy journey -- something director Bryan Singer should know better from his successful run pitting our heroes against a compelling villain like Magneto. Because of its weak villain and misguided attention, Apocalypse flounders in a wash of uninspired action and static character drama, making for a boilerplate blockbuster that never delivers enough of the goods even when it has them.
3. Doctor Strange
Good news! From here, the movies start getting really good. In fact, while Doctor Strange landed the third spot in our staff vote, it was my pick as the best superhero film of the year. With Doctor Strange, Marvel continued to prove their knack for expanding and enriching their cinematic universe with each new film. It's visually stunning, kinetically creative, and it touches on themes of death and duty without ever dragging the film's overall tone down into doom and gloom.
Director Scott Derrickson has demonstrated a talent for grounding the otherworldly in reality since his debut feature The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and that skill serves him well as he charts Strange's journey from the mundane life of a Manhattan surgeon to the extraordinary that awaits him in the Kamar-Taj. At the same time, Benedict Cumberbatch makes a spirited and charming entry into the MCU (even if he does feel a bit Tony Stark-lite at first), endowing Strange's pithy brilliance with an easy charm. This is a character you know won't play well with others, but you can't wait to watch it go poorly in future films. Chiwetel Ejiofor also marks a welcome entry to the universe as Mordo; a well-reasoned, powerful, and compassionately rendered villain emergent who promises an intimate battle to come.
But if Doctor Strange builds a great villain in Mordo, it also suffers from the Marvel plague of the signature one-two punch -- a compelling enough primary villain (Mads Mikkelsen's Kaecillius) that gives way to a much less interesting all-powerful baddie (Dormammu). Welp, at least it wasn't Thanos this time. It also suffers from another Marvel pitfall -- the thankless and largely useless secondary female character, this time played by the lovely Rachel McAdams.
Even with its formulaic faults, Doctor Strange delivers an exciting expansion of the Marvel universe. The introduction of sorcery adds a new texture and threat to the Infinity War we know lies ahead -- we've seen how powerful time control can be, now imagine it in the wrong hands. It also opens up the opportunity for inventive action set-pieces and mind-bending imagery that expands Marvel's pallet, and Derrickson never wastes an opportunity to defy the conventions of the on-screen magic in favor of a visually engaging and more interesting twist on the genre.
2. Deadpool
At long last, Deadpool finally got his due. The fan-favorite comic book character suffered a mighty on-screen indignity in Wolverine: Origins when the Merc with a Mouth's...well mouth, was infamously sewn shut in the 2009 X-Men spinoff (a catch-all symbol for how completely the character was neutered). Lucky for us, Ryan Reynolds stuck with the property over the years with resolute bullishness, and he assembled a creative team in screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and director Tim Miller, who had enough faith in the character to embrace his crass irreverence and trust that the audience would happily go along for the ride.
That cheeky, subversive lilt defines the best of Deadpool, from opening credits to the final frame. The title hero breaks the fourth wall, drops meta jokes about his place in the superhero genre, and exacts bloody vengeance with relentless flair. And all of it feels like a loving middle finger to the conventions that have come to define the superhero genre. Let's just say most superhero movies don't have enough disregard for "good taste" to shoot their heroes right up the ass, but Deadpool never backs down from the flagrant.
At the same time, Deadpool functions as a whole thanks to the underlying love story. Deadpool's groundbreaking release date was cleverly scheduled around Valentine's Day, and there's an undercurrent of sweetness beneath the constant quips and splattered corpses that makes for a peculiar and enchanting blend. That surprisingly earnest backbone gives Deadpool some guts and heart behind the excess of balls, and the film is all the better for it. Basically, Deadpool hits all the marks. It suffers from a somewhat generic (and underfunded) climactic set piece, but that's never enough to stand in the way of the pure force of audacity and clarity of vision that makes Deadpool such a hard-earned triumph of the genre.
1. Captain America: Civil War
Following their celebrated work on Captain America: The Winter Solider, Joe and Anthony Russo faced a much bigger challenge with the Avengers interval Captain America: Civil War. Ultimately, beneath whatever story was crafted and whatever set-pieces they conceived, Civil War always had to act as a crucial cog in Marvel's massive cinematic universe. It had to introduce Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther for the character's first on-screen incarnation, establish a new Spider-Man worthy of his own film (and mark the beginning of an unprecedented deal with Sony) with Tom Holland's Peter Parker, and stage a rift in the Avengers without turning Cap or Iron Man into the bad guy. Oh, and along the way, it also had to provide a convincing impetus for supporting characters like Scarlett Witch, Vision, Black Widow, and Rhodey....while still being a Captain America movie.
Somehow they pulled it off. Don't get me wrong, some of the arcs and motivations are thin (looking at you Ant-Man), but by and large, Civil War managed to serve a huge amount of characters without convoluting the plot or abandoning its Cap's central arc. It's a feat that was largely made possible by the clever subversion of Marvel's standard villain arc. With Daniel Bruhl's Zemo, we got a brilliant and personally motivated bad guy who had relatable, definite stakes. Zemo never wanted to rule the galaxy or end the world, he just wanted to set the stage on which the Avengers would tear themselves apart. And he succeeded. A bold and unusual ending for superhero fare.
Civil War delivers the exceptional spectacle and action we've come to expect from Marvel films, while keeping the stakes grounded and Earth-bound. We know there's a bigger, galactic battle afoot, but that does nothing to undermine the personal stakes of the hero-one-hero final showdown where Cap just wants to save what's left of his best friend and Tony just wants vengeance on the guy who killed his parents. That emotional simplicity gives the battle arguably bigger stakes (and the fantastic fight choreography doesn't hurt one bit) and relatable truth.
Civil War is both sprawling and intimate. It balances action and interpersonal drama with a measured ease that belies the inherent narrative challenge such a wide-ranging film. It culminates and satisfies tensions that are years in the making while also setting a path for new, exciting characters, and it embraces the greatness in each character that makes their story worth telling. It's a remarkable balancing act, serving the past, present, and future of the MCU that never gets bogged down by its own weight and never betrays the integrity of its characters. And it's the bets superhero film of 2016.