Ranking Every MCU Film From Worst To Best

Despite the existence of four other Phase 1 movies by the time Captain America came out, Joe Johnston's stand-alone felt like the first time that the MCU was a real thing. Previously, flirtations with a shared universe had amounted mostly to easter eggs, and despite the announcement of an Avengers ensemble, it wasn't until April 2011 that production actually started. 

Surprisingly the slow-burning retro-futurist adventure did significantly less well at the box office than Thor, but the film itself was more entertaining as a whole. Thanks to brilliant casting of both Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving, the charm and character focus was enough to fill in for the lack of a more stylised aesthetic. And while it wasn't quite pulpy, but it's certainly the most pulpy of all of the MCU films.

It was an unfortunate shame that the film so definitively moved away from Cap's contemporary timeline - particularly as it meant the end of the Howling Commandos - but the amalgamated universe required the first Avenger to meet the rest of the team, and it was a good move in that respect.