Summary

  • Captain America is the heart of the MCU, with his story spanning over eight decades and serving as a conscious and soul of Marvel's biggest stories.
  • Despite only starring in three solo films, Captain America has had a major impact in the MCU through his appearances in team-up films, contrasting his purity of spirit with flawed Avengers.
  • Among the Captain America movies, Captain America: Civil War feels too episodic and overstuffed, while Captain America: The First Avenger captures the essence of the character and his relationship with Peggy Carter. Captain America: The Winter Soldier explores complex themes and solidifies Steve Rogers as a true patriot.

Captain America is the beating heart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man may have kickstarted the shared universe, and other Marvel heavyweights like Thor and Black Panther have taken the spotlight from time to time, but the conscious and soul of Marvel's biggest stories have always come back to Steve Rogers. Played with earnest conviction by Chris Evans, Cap's story spans over eight decades in the MCU timeline, from his World War II origins right up to facing off with Thanos in a futile effort to save the universe from devastation.

Captain America has been such an elemental and ever-present force in the MCU that it's hard to believe he's only technically starred in three solo films. Many of the character's appearances have come in team up films, where it's easier to contrast his purity of spirit and purpose with some of the more obviously flawed Avengers. But in these movies, Steve Rogers is one of many main characters, not the main character, meaning when looking at ranking Captain America movies, it's best to rank the main trio. This is especially true given they are easily some of the best MCU films when it comes to a solo trilogy - though this does apply to some of these movies more than others.

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Captain America: Civil War

Captain America's faction at the airport in Civil War

Captain America: Civil War was a huge turning point for the MCU. There had always been a certain amount of tension between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, but this is the point where that tension boiled over. Cap's efforts to protect his deeply damaged friend Bucky and shirk the Sokovia Accords led to a splintering of the Avengers that's still not fully healed heading into Endgame. By the MCU's standards, it's a dark, heavy movie that sees friends forced to fight each other over morally ambiguous ideals that neither side if completely sure about. It's also a movie blessed with the debut of Tom Holland's Spider-Man, who serves as an irresistible breath of fresh air amidst all the chaos.

But Civil War is, essentially, an Avengers film. It's just as much about Tony Stark as it is Steve Rogers, and the fact that nearly every Avenger - save for Thor and Hulk - are on hand makes it hard to take too much time to focus on Cap himself. The film still manages to say some important things about Cap's worldview - his sense of loyalty and righteousness even in the face of unthinkable resistance is the character at his core, to be sure.

But the whole thing feels a little bit improbable; it's difficult to shake the feeling that most of Steve and Tony's differences could be settled if they would sit down and just talk it out. It's also overstuffed, as it's tasked with being a Captain America movie, and Avengers movie, and setting up both Black Panther and Spider-Man's solo movies. It's one of the MCU films that feels too episodic, like it's a piece of a puzzle rather than its own independent creation. However, the legacy of the airport scene is sure to land it a spot in many MCU fans' hearts.

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Captain America: The First Avenger

It seems as if Captain America: The First Avenger only gets better with age. The World War II-set film that introduces audiences to Steve Rogers in many ways feels separate from the larger MCU, not only in its time period but in its storytelling and visual style. The First Avenger was the fifth MCU film, before the studio had established what is sometimes derisively described as their "house style." Veteran director Joe Johnston evokes a warm, nostalgic tone, similar to his underrated classic The Rocketeer. A rock solid script from Christopher Markus and Steve McFeely - with an uncredited polish by Joss Whedon - firmly and effortlessly establishes what kind of man Steve Rogers is before he's ever shot up with super-soldier serum.

The First Avenger featured an absolute murderer's row of a supporting cast, headlined by Hugo Weaving's theatrical turn as the Red Skull, the head of Hydra and a Nazi operative who had his own ideas about world domination. Tommy Lee Jones gives a fantastic performance Colonel Chester Phillips, a cranky cynic who is eventually won over by Cap, and Toby Jones shines as Arnim Zola, a slippery Nazi scientist who would eventually go on to threaten Cap in the 21st century.

But the heart of The First Avenger is the relationship between Steve and Peggy Carter - the latter played with effortless charm by Hayley Atwell, who would headline her own short-lived TV spinoff on ABC. Their chaste, doomed romance looms large over the entirety of Steve's MCU story, mostly because it's so affecting in The First Avenger. Perhaps appropriately for a film set in the 1940s, Captain America: The First Avenger feels like a film from a different era, before the wry attitude and inescapable interconnectedness of the MCU took root. It's far from the MCU's biggest hit, but it's unquestionably the movie where audiences first fell in love with this version of Captain America and all he stands for.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson in Captain America The Winter Soldier

Anything as popular and ubiquitous as the MCU is going to come in for criticism. Many years into the MCU, the stock complaints about what have become the most popular films in the world are pretty well-defined at this point - the tone is too snarky and self-deprecating, the villains are unimpressive, they're unimaginatively shot, and none of them can stand on their own as self-contained films. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is essentially a rebuttal to all of that.

While the MCU films had always paid lip service to rebelling against authority - like Tony Stark's attitude toward poor Phil Coulson in the first two Iron Man movies - The Winter Soldier was the first MCU film that truly muddied the waters between who was good and evil in this world, revealing a massive Hydra conspiracy at the highest levels of the ostensibly altruistic S.H.I.E.L.D. Anthony and Joe Russo - largely known for their work on innovative TV comedies like Arrested Development and Community - seemingly came out of nowhere to make the most visually appealing and dynamic MCU film up to that point, while simultaneously leaning into some political thriller tropes that the MCU hadn't really touched before.

And this time, the true villain wasn't the cyborg man with the amazing abilities - it was the seemingly amiable S.H.I.E.L.D. administrator Alexander Pierce, played with quiet menace by the legendary Robert Redford. Redford is the big name here, but the film also features great turns from Sebastian Stan as the titular antagonist, and arguably Samuel L. Jackson's best, most nuanced performance as Nick Fury. Large chunks of it also serve as a sort of buddy cop movie with Cap and Black Widow, with Scarlett Johansson proving once again that Natasha Romanov was long overdue for her own film.

The Winter Soldier is also the point where it was made plain that Steve Rogers' Captain America was more than a loyal soldier, and that his own sense of right and wrong superseded powerful institutions and direct orders. It was the point when Captain America became a true patriot by not just simply following orders, but taking on the system when he realized it was operating in bad faith. Captain America: The Winter Soldier not only solidified Steve Rogers as the MCU's arbiter of justice, it also proved that the MCU was capable of being more than just an assembly line of blockbuster films, and it could tell timely, important stories about big ideas.

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