Ranking Every MCU Film From Worst To Best
7. Iron Man
Without Iron Man's success in 2008, there wouldn't be an MCU. There also probably wouldn't be a DCCU, either, but that's not for discussion here. And without Robert Downey Junior's casting as Tony Stark, there probably wouldn't have been the same kind of ground-breaking success.
The actor - almost fabled for his debauched, self-destructive behaviour - was Marvel's biggest gamble at the time, particularly given how close they'd got to having Tom Cruise in the famous red suit. But typically, just as he's done with the majority of his roles, Downey Jnr was a revelation, drawing on his own personal experiences as a public "wild child" to pull Stark off the page in not only an authentic way, but in a devastatingly charming one.
His origin story is easily the least spectacular of all of the heroes in the MCU, but watching Downey Jnr claw his way from brattish arrogance to self-awareness and altruism is utterly irresistible thanks to the lead actor and a very tight script.
And in presenting Obadiah Stane as Stark's antithesis as well as the antagonist, Marvel set the model for almost all of the MCU films, where the most compelling villains reflected something about the hero.