MCU: Every Thor Appearance Ranked Worst To Best

Thor has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2011, appearing in six films over the years. Despite a solid start, an argument can be made that the franchise stumbled for a while in figuring out what to do with him, as it wasn't until his recent reinvention over the last year that finally put him shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Avengers Iron Man and Captain America in terms of popularity.

Regardless of the quality of the road he's been traveling through the years, it's been an interesting journey for the character nonetheless, the Asgardian learning a major lesson in humility and losing more along the way to embracing his role as the God of Thunder than many of the other heroes we've come to know. Through it all, Chris Hemsworth has proven why he was a solid choice for the role, overcoming the character's frustrating underutilization and reinvigorating Thor in fantastic ways we'll discuss later in this list.

Following yesterday's breakdown of Captain America's appearances in the franchise, let's now turn the spotlight on Thor as we wait to see where next year's Avengers 4 takes the hero, looking back over his time in the MCU to date in order to stack up each of his appearances, breaking down what they meant for the character, his arc, and his overall place in the series in order to sort out which film served him best.

Of the half dozen films that Thor has appeared in over the years, Age of Ultron was the one that truly felt as though it had no clue what to do with the character. It's no secret that much of Thor's personal journey in the film surrounding his trip to the Norns was cut from the movie, resulting in the much-maligned, all-too-brief cave sequence we got.

To be fair, it set Thor down the road that led to Ragnarok and Infinity War, but in the context of the film, the scene's brevity is symbolic of Thor's role in the film overall. Unlike the first film, which carried some emotional weight for him due to the presence of Loki, Thor just felt kind of there the second time around, getting some cool action moments and being the one to fully bring Vision to life but not actually getting anything thrown his way in terms of character work.

Not to mention, the opening moments of Ragnarok ended up brushing off where Age of Ultron left off for the character - with Thor headed out in search of the Infinity Stones - which has only retroactively made his appearance in the Avengers sequel feel more of an obligation than a necessity. That said, we did get the great party scene in which his friends attempted to lift Mjolnir, with Thor worriedly noticing that Cap actually did move it, so it's not a complete loss for the character.