Every Marvel Comic Book Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

3. Captain America: Civil War

Like Days Of Future Past and Logan, Civil War should never have worked, and that suspicion was partly down to the iconic status of the source material. In the end, it turned out that the Russos' decision not to purely adapt the comic book event and to instead focus on a far more personal story was their shining grace.

On paper, the film would have too many working parts, with the original Avengers' squad swollen by new additions, a new villain to set up and actually make us care about and a heavy political story taking in civil rights, Big Brother style surveillance anxiety and issues of trust and family. That it worked is great, that the result is exceptional is just plain stunning.

The film opens with a bang (literally), and almost every element is handled masterfully, to the extent that the superfluous fan-baiting elements - such as Spider-Man and Ant-Man appearing for pretty much no reason - still deliver beyond what they organically earn.

The stakes are simultaneously world-changing and claustrophobically intimate, anchored by an excellent script and a delicious ambiguity that makes actually choosing a side difficult. And despite all of the accusations levelled at Marvel for their apparent inability to create compelling villains (even in their best films), Zemo is a great addition and far better than any grand pantomime figure could ever have been.