Every Billion Dollar Comic Book Movie Ranked Worst To Best

2. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Box Office: $2,048,711,378

Considering the escalation between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War, it's still stunning to see the leap in scale to Avengers: Infinity War. All of the films were made by the same directing team and towards the same principles and as with Civil War, Infinity War's focus on the universally-threatening conflict with Thanos was played with deeply personal stakes too.

This is actually Thanos' film, exploring his motivations and the ramifications of his actions and his threats in more detail than anyone could have imagined going in. He's a more compelling villain than any of the other MCU bad guys (even Killmonger and Loki) and far more fully-rounded, to the point that there was real conflict in the fanbase concerning whether he was wholly in the wrong.

The story is not as focused here as the Russos' two previous offerings, simply because there are more balls in the air, but nobody feels particularly left out (which might not have been possible to say had they not cut Ant-Man, Hawkeye and all of the other missing parties). And there's no getting around the impact of that ending or how it sets up Avengers: Endgame.