Happy March, and welcome to IGN's Super Movie Madness, a title we came to upon realizing that "superhero" and "March Madness" are both trademarked terms.
Throughout the month, we're tallying our followers’ votes across IGN.com and IGN's YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to determine what is the greatest (or simply most beloved) superhero movie of all time. We've sorted the movies into groups of 16 across four categories: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, non-MCU Marvel, DC, and those that don’t fit in the other categories. (Scroll down if you want to start voting now!)
We decided on four categories after looking at how completely dominant Marvel and DC have been over the last two decades in terms of sheer cinematic output. We want our final list to represent a balance between both quality and popularity. These are also questions we asked ourselves when it came to seeding. Sure, Captain America: The Winter Soldier may be one of the most critically acclaimed MCU movies, but does it deserve the number 1 seed over what is literally the highest-grossing film of all time?
We also want to probe our audience and ourselves to question what elements make these movies great, which is why we're producing video deep-dives into these films to extract what elements put some a cut above the rest. You can watch our first video focusing on movie villains right now (or read the article version here). Maybe it will influence how you vote in the round of 64, or perhaps it will merely serve to reinforce what you already know. Either way, we hope you wonder if a superhero movie can really be called the best-ever with an unmemorable villain.
Now onto the first round, where we noticed a few things going in. (Keep scrolling down to cast your votes!) First, 49 of our 64 movies premiered in 2000 or later. Looking back, it’s easy to credit 2000’s X-Men with setting the template for what superhero movies would be for the next two decades. Similarly, The Dark Knight deserves credit in 2008 for suggesting what superhero movies could be from a filmmaking standpoint. Each likely deserves a good amount of credit for the deluge of production that followed. Second, we are still living in an era with little diversity when it comes to our on-screen defenders of truth and justice. Only a handful feature non-white leads, but hopefully the somewhat recent successes of 2018's Black Panther and 2019's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse mark a positive change toward inclusion and representation.
Third, yes, we know there will inevitably be issues with our choices for this round, so here are some methods to our madness. If Batman is a superhero, V is a superhero. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are literally mutant turtles with human powers, so they count too. The Batman movie from 1966 is just better than the Joel Schumacher ones (though Jim Carrey would be at home in any of them). And yes, some of us here at IGN predict time will look favorably upon Venom, if only for Tom Hardy's seriously out-of-body performance.
Finally, we hope there are a few films on this list that you've never heard of that this list inspires you to revisit. And by that we specifically mean Sam Raimi's 1990 masterpiece Darkman, where you can enjoyably watch Liam Neeson go crazy for a couple of hours. If it were up to us, everyone would see Darkman.
Polls for the round of 64 end on Friday, March 5. Thanks for voting, and we hope you enjoy!
