With mutants featuring more and more in MCU movies and with us seeing more of the old team before they officially come to Earth-616, let’s look at two different ways that you can catch up on the movies. First is chronological order. This is probably the most logical way to watch the movies as it features time travel and changes the timeline significantly. This list will probably appear different than a lot of lists that put them chronologically because of that, they will put things in the second 1980s before things that happened before the first 2000s. This list explores the chronological order in which they happen, not necessarily chronologically the year they happened in.
Chronological Order
Original Timeline
X-Men First Class
This is the start of it all. The movie starts back in 1944 giving insight into Erik and jumps ahead to 1962 where it explores Charles’ and Erik’s relationship. That relationship is the key to not only the start of the X-Men, but the start of the Brotherhood of Mutants. The movie also gives a lot more insight to a character previously only seen at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand, Moira MacTaggert.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This is the origin of Wolverine. What his powers are, how he got the adamantium skeleton, and how he connects to William Stryker, who first appeared in X2: X-Men United. The story starts in 1845 (he really is older than the professor) before picking back up in 1979. The movie also features the first time we see Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson/Deadpool.
X-Men
This is the original start of the universe. The first X-Men movie released and the one that introduced the concept of mutants to an entire generation who didn’t read comics. While some aspects are touched on, like Erik’s treatment in Auschwitz, this movie is really more about how Wolverine who can’t remember his past due to the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine ends up coming across Rogue and the X-Men. Though it’s not the first time he encounters Xavier, this time he sticks around and helps the team against Magneto.
X2: X-Men United
This movie picks up shortly after the previous film. While the first movie dealt with a plot to turn everyone into a mutant, this movie deals more with using mutants as weapons. Previous movies in this list have done this and probably in some ways in more detail, but this was the first one released to show it in action. Between Nightcrawler attacking the president to Mystique impersonating a US Senator, this movie really showed off for the first time, how mutants could be a threat to the world.
X-Men: The Last Stand
While it wasn’t as good as its predecessors, this is the movie where we get our first look at Kelsey Grammer as Beast. We also see the return of Jean Grey as the more powerful Phoenix. The movie deals with the question of should mutants take a cure to make them powerless. The end also showed Moira for the first time, a character that would again be seen years later in X-Men First Class.
The Wolverine
The Wolverine begins in 1945 when Logan saves Ichir? Yashida from the atomic bomb near Nagasaki. In the present, set a few years after The Last Stand, Logan is suffering PTSD from having to kill Jean. He travels to Japan after Yukio finds him and tells him Ichir? is near death and wants to repay him for his act. While in Japan, Wolverine has to deal with the Yakuza and the Silver Samarai. At the end of the movie, a resurrected Xavier and Erik show up to warn Wolverine of a new weapon.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
In 2023, Sentinel robots hunt and kill mutants as well as any human that carries the genetic potential to have a mutant descendent. The Sentinels can adapt to any mutant power. They’re able to be such effective killers because Mystique killed Boliver Trask in the 70s and was captured sometime later and experimented on. Her DNA was used to create the ultimate mutant killing robots. Kitty Pryde, who now has the ability to send people back in time, sends Wolverine back in time to stop Mystique.
New Timeline
As soon as Wolverine wakes up in the 70s, the new timeline is created. Logan immediately goes to Xavier and finds him in a drunken state with the ability to walk from a serum, but one that also removes his psychic abilities. After stopping Mystique from killing Trask, she disguises herself as William Stryker and recruits Wolverine for the Weapon X program. When Wolverine’s mind wakes up in 2023, he’s at the X-Mansion where he sees Cyclops, Rogue, Jean, and the professor are all alive.
X-Men: Apocalypse
Where The First Class was how Erik and Charles met, this movie is about how the best known iteration of the team was formed. It sees Jean, Cyclopse, Storm, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver all join the X-Men officially. They fight against the deadly Apocalypse, who was teased at the end of Days of Future Past. The ending teases the Essex Corporation with Weapon X’s blood samples.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix
This is the second time that the movies tried to do Dark Phoenix justice. The movie was supposed to feature Skrulls, but since Marvel started using them in Captain Marvel, they were instead replaced by D’Bari. This time though, even after killing Mystique accidentally earlier in the movie, it ends with her being a hero.
Deadpool
This is not your X-Men Origins: Wolverine Deadpool, this is the new and improved Deadpool! With Wolverine being recruited in the 70s and the new timeline in tact, the movie recaps who he is and how he got to be where he is, why he wears red, and how he’s a fighter, but also a lover. The movie is filled with humor, while also being an R-rated action movie. Literally the best of both worlds.
Deadpool 2
This movie also deals with time travel, but this time Cable (who may or may not be Jean and Cyclops’ son in this version) comes back to kill an unstable mutant child who was being abused at an orphanage owned by the Essex Corporation, but labeled as a Mutant-Re-education Center. Wade takes it upon himself to protect the child, Russell. Eventually Cable uses the last charge in his time travel device to save Wade. Yukio (different version of the one from the original timeline and Negasonic fix the device and Wade uses it to go back in time to save Vanessa, the alternate version of himself from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Ryan Reynolds before he can read the Green Lantern script.
The New Mutants
There is no definitive time to watch it, but seeing as how it connects to Logan and how these mutants came to be, I am putting this before Logan. Essex Corporation features heavily in this and was supposed to lead into a new movie, where Mr. Sinister would be revealed, which could be why Apocalypse didn’t tease the next chapter. Since Disney purchased Fox prior to the release of this movie, those plans were scrapped.
Logan
New mutants have not been born for years and Xavier is suffering a mental break. Wolverine is dying from adamantium poisoning. Logan meets a mutant Laura after being summoned by Xavier, who turns out to be his genetic daughter. She was created by Essex Corporation as we’d seen the teases of in previous movies. The end shows Logan dying “with his heart in his hand”.
Deadpool and Wolverine
Some would argue that this should be before Logan, but seeing as how it happens because of Logan’s death, I think it belongs at the end. In it Wade is told that Wolverine dies in the future and that kills his world, so he travels to after Logan ended and then to the end of time, finally coming back to when Logan was still alive. The end saw two Wolverines on one earth, even if that wasn’t addressed, but due to these new events, it could mean that Logan never happens and that’s why the timeline is restored.
Release Order
The second way to watch the movies is the order in which they were released, which you’d think would be the logical way, but it’s not.
X-Men (2000)
X2 (2003)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
X-Men: First Class (2011)
The Wolverine (2013)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Deadpool (2016)
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Logan (2017)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Dark Phoenix (2019)
The New Mutants (2020)
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
While we didn’t cover mutants and X-Men showing up in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, or any upcoming movie, we are sure to see these characters again (because Feige said so). Are you exciting to see your favorite mutants again in the future? We recently saw Deadpool, Wolverine, Pyro, Sabretooth, Beast, and more, are there any you’re looking forward to that hasn’t been back around yet? Let us know!
