Black Widow Movie: 10 Things It Must Include

5. Winter Soldier-Style Espionage

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is still the MCU's best film, and a lot of that comes down to its brilliant emulation of classic Cold War drama.

Mirroring classic seventies conspiracy films like Three Days of the Condor and All the President's Men, TWS roots itself primarily in a tacit kind of paranoia that defined those earlier works, displaying it with a nod and a wink right down to the fact that Robert Redford, the star of both those films, plays the villain. It's just brilliant, and while no one wants to see just another Winter Soldier, there are certainly lessons the film can provide going forward.

Black Widow is a spy first and foremost, and to date, the Russo bros' first Marvel film has done the best job of portraying that element of the character. It's as much Nat's film as it Steve's, and it's that same kind of tone any Widow film should look to emulate whether it's set in the past, present or future.

It's all well and good making yet another superhero film, but that portion of the Marvel Universe has always worked best as a genre in and of itself, blurring the lines between heroism and villainy with a boastful emulation of classic Cold War conspiracy.