With the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, there are now 32 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, on top of various other TV shows, one-off specials, and short films. Among all those entries in the MCU, the Guardians of the Galaxy have appeared in a total of seven titles: three main films, one holiday special, and then supporting/minor roles in three other Marvel films.

Vol. 3 serves as a farewell to the team in their current form, as well as being James Gunn's final Guardians film before jumping back to the world of DC and running that series of films. It's bittersweet, but fans can rest easy knowing the Guardians legacy will live on, and it may not necessarily be the final film for all the characters involved, especially with all those Multiverse shenanigans going on. This being the end of an era, more or less, now's a good time to look back on all the MCU films that feature the Guardians of the Galaxy, and rank them from worst to best.

7 'Thor: Love and Thunder' (2022)

Directed by Taika Waititi

Thor: Love and Thunder might well be the worst movie in the MCU so far, and unfortunately, the Guardians get dragged into it. Thankfully, it doesn't tarnish their reputation too much, as they only appear in the film's opening, given they were paired up with Thor at the end of 2019's Avengers: Endgame. They go their separate ways less than 15 minutes into the movie, and don't appear again, with things solely focused on Thor and his story from then on.

Their appearance here is still underwhelming, and something feels off about them. The group dynamic and entertaining banter just isn't there, and it feels like the dialogue and character interactions have been written by someone who doesn't understand what makes the Guardians team great. As for the film overall? Despite talented people working behind and in front of the camera, it's a bit of a train wreck, and sees director Taika Waititi failing to strike gold twice after the exciting and memorable Thor: Ragnarok (2017).

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6 'The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special' (2022)

Directed by James Gunn

In a couple of key ways, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special represents a drastic change of pace for the Guardians movies, and even the MCU as a whole. For starters, it's not a feature film in the traditional sense, given it runs for about three-quarters of an hour and was released directly to Disney+. It also has significantly lower stakes than most other entries in the MCU, to the point where it's comedic and breezy enough that it arguably doesn't qualify as a true action movie.

The plot revolves around Drax and Mantis trying to cheer up Peter, given he's lost Gamora, and the version of her that was introduced in Endgame is from a different timeline altogether. To help him, they try to get him an unforgettable Christmas present, and that's as in-depth as the plot gets. It's fun enough for what it is, and a nice, breezy prologue of sorts to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (they were filmed at the same time), but isn't anything amazing either.

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5 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' (2023)

Directed by James Gunn

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes dangerously close to biting off more than it can chew. The core team is now nearly twice as large as it was in the first movie, the plot sees them clashing with two separate antagonists, Adam Warlock and the High Evolutionary, a new version of Gamora has to be properly reintroduced, Rocket's tragic origins are explored, and the film ultimately has to conclude in a way that feels like the end of a trilogy.

It does all these individual elements incredibly well, but doesn't quite combine them all into a seamless overall package. That being said, there's more than enough great stuff in Guardians 3 to make the whole thing a blast to watch, even though it feels a little messy and unwieldy at points. But that won't matter much to most, because the humor still hits, the action largely satisfies, the characters are still fun to watch, and much of the emotional scenes do truly land. It's a flawed but fitting Guardians finale.

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4 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' (2017)

Directed by James Gunn

For the most part, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 largely captures the essence of what made the first movie so great. It has the team getting wrapped up in a conflict that does eventually save the galaxy, though for the most part, it's a more personal and character-focused story than the first was. It focuses on characters grappling with their various past traumas, and Peter Quill in particular goes through a great deal as he meets his father for the first time and learns about who he really is.

It isn't quite as tight as the first movie, though, with the slightly longer runtime leading to pacing that doesn't feel as satisfying as 2014's Guardians film. Yet the high points are what stick in mind the most, and make Vol. 2 a fairly great movie overall, with it having an excellently bittersweet ending that also ends up allowing the Guardians to transition into appearing in crossover films, given their subsequent three appearances have them in movies where they're not the title characters.

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3 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019)

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

With an epic and dramatic story that fits its title, Avengers: Endgame successfully brings the overall Infinity Saga told throughout Phases 1 to 3 to a satisfying end. After the devastating conclusion to 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, all hope seems lost for the universe, with half of life vanishing from it in an instant. The surviving Avengers eventually reunite for a daring mission (involving time travel!) which they hope will allow them to bring back everyone who Thanos made disappear.

For much of the movie, Rocket is the only Guardian of the Galaxy to appear, though the inevitable giant battle at the climax does bring back the rest of the Guardians, along with everyone else who vanished at the end of Infinity War. Diehard Guardians fans may be sad there isn't a lot of interaction between the characters, but they're used well in a limited capacity, and thankfully, Rocket does get numerous opportunities to shine throughout.

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2 'Guardians of the Galaxy' (2014)

Directed by James Gunn

The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was seen as a risky project for Marvel at the time, given very few non-comic fans had heard of these characters before. It enabled the film to introduce them to a wider audience than ever before, and people gravitated towards these quirky, flawed, rebellious, yet good-hearted comic book characters almost instantly, making Guardians of the Galaxy a surprise hit.

The central characters meet early on, yet it takes much of the movie for them to properly bond and begin to trust each other. Seeing them slowly open up to each other and form a non-traditional family of sorts is what gives this first movie so much heart, and that it's also just really entertaining, funny, and action-packed is the icing on the cake. It's one of the most well-balanced, satisfying, and distinct movies in the entire MCU, and one that will likely just get better and better with age.

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1 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018)

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

Avengers: Infinity War is likely the most ambitious MCU movie so far, even topping Endgame when it comes to scale and the size of its cast. It features the majority of main characters from the previous 10 years of Marvel movies, and succeeds in balancing them all. And on top of that, its focus is actually on its villain, Thanos, who sets out on a ruthless mission to obtain all the Infinity Stones, which will allow him to achieve his goal of halving all life in the universe, purportedly to prevent overpopulation.

Throughout its action-packed, non-stop story, it spends time with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and shows how they get involved with the most dramatic conflict the universe has ever seen. Gamora and Peter end up being particularly relevant to how the story progresses, and though the characters here weren't fully in James Gunn's hands, they're handled well within a more wide-reaching story. The movies solely focusing on the Guardians do inevitably give them more to do, but since Infinity War does feature them a good deal, and remains a high point of the MCU overall, it is arguably the best Marvel movie to feature the Guardians of the Galaxy.

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