Warning: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
A couple of years on from the triumphant finality of Avengers: Endgame, the MCU’s Phase Four is in full swing. So far, this phase has brought prequels, sequels, streaming series, and multiversal team-ups. This phase has introduced fans to new characters, revamped familiar ones, and even established a few “variants” of the same person.
The phase has also brought some of the MCU’s greatest action sequences to date. From the martial arts brawls of Shang-Chi to the trick-arrow fun of Hawkeye, Phase Four has been filled with thrilling action set-pieces.
The Scaffolding Fight (Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings)
After Shang-Chi is lured into a trap at an underground fight club, Ten Rings assassins swarm the building and try to capture him. He and Katy flee out of the window and scale the scaffolding on the side of the building.
Hanging off the side of a skyscraper adds a ton of extra tension to the ensuing fight scene. Not only are characters getting beaten, gouged, and kicked in the head; they’re dangling hundreds of feet above a sprawling metropolis.
Natasha Vs. The Other Black Widows (Black Widow)
Black Widow finally got her own movie earlier this year, and it saw her infiltrating the Red Room to take down the Black Widow program for good. When Natasha confronts Dreykov, he makes his escape and sends in a small army of Black Widow assassins to kill her.
Like the elevator fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, sequences in which one hero takes on multiple opponents will always be exciting. It seems as though Nat will lose the fight, but Yelena shows up with the Black Widow antidote in the nick of time.
Doctor Strange Chases Spider-Man Across Various Dimensions (Spider-Man: No Way Home)
A major theme running throughout Spider-Man: No Way Home is that everybody deserves a second chance. If Peter deserves a second chance, then so do the multiversal supervillains who have been tormenting him. Doctor Strange has a different idea: he wants to send them back to the universes they came from to die. So, Spidey steals the magic box that Strange plans to use to do this.
Strange chases him across various dimensions – with such visually stunning moments as a train tearing through the sky and New York City collapsing in on itself – before Spidey manages to trap him in the Grand Canyon. Hero-on-hero fights will always be fun, because the audience doesn’t inherently pick a side.
Captain Carter Singlehandedly Takes Down Warplanes (What If...?)
For the most part, the pilot episode of What If...? relies on remaking scenes from Captain America: The First Avenger with Peggy in Steve’s place. The episode succeeds best when it gives Captain Carter her own badass moments.
A prime example of this is when she teams up with the Hydra Stomper to take down enemy warplanes. This dizzying aerial sequence is a wholly original creation, and one of the show’s highlights.
John Walker’s Shield Smackdown (The Falcon And The Winter Soldier)
Despite having a movie-sized budget, a lot of the action in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier felt like TV action paling in comparison to the spectacle of the MCU’s big-screen output. But the climactic sequence of the fourth episode brought one of the franchise’s most shockingly dark moments.
After showing glimpses of his true nature throughout the first couple of episodes, Wyatt Russell’s “new Captain America” John Walker finally goes full-tilt villain. In a gruesome, surprisingly bloody display, Walker beats a semi-innocent man to death with Cap’s shield in front of a crowd of stunned civilians.
Doc Ock’s Bridge Attack (Spider-Man: No Way Home)
The multiversal ramifications of Peter meddling in Doctor Strange’s magic first rear their head while he’s chasing a car on a bridge, trying to get Ned and MJ another shot at going to college. Suddenly, he’s attacked by four mechanical tentacles and Alfred Molina slips seamlessly back into the role of Doctor Octopus.
Director Jon Watts introduces No Way Home’s live-action Spider-Verse in truly explosive fashion in this sequence. Spidey desperately tries to save everybody on the bridge while Doc Ock’s metal limbs rip chunks out of his nanotech-infused suit.
Lokis Vs. Alioth (Loki)
In the penultimate episode of Loki, the mainline Loki teams up with a bunch of versions of himself – Sylvie, Kid Loki, Classic Loki, and Alligator Loki – to slay Alioth, a giant cloud dragon.
This slay-the-dragon sequence felt like the climactic action of the entire series. It made the dialogue-driven, Kang-centric season finale feel frustratingly small-scale in comparison. Classic Loki’s sacrifice is a heartbreaking moment handled deftly by the great Richard E. Grant.
The Car Chase (Hawkeye)
Although their best-known work is a heartfelt dramedy, Bert and Bertie have more than proven themselves as action directors with their trio of Hawkeye episodes. The car chase in “Echoes” is a perfect example. The sequence begins with a chaotic, captivating long take and involves Kate Bishop having a lot of fun with trick arrows.
Amid the carnage, this set-piece demonstrates that Clint and Kate have strong communication in the face of adversity, even non-verbally when Clint’s hearing aid is broken.
The Statue Of Liberty Finale (Spider-Man: No Way Home)
Following months of rumors and speculation, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men showed up alongside Tom Holland’s Spidey in No Way Home after all. The movie’s final battle, which sees all the Spideys fighting all the Spidey villains, takes place on the Statue of Liberty in the midst of being renovated with a Captain America shield.
This finale has plenty of action and spectacle, but its most memorable moments play on the audience’s emotions, like Garfield’s Spidey saving MJ from falling, Maguire’s Spidey saving Holland’s from becoming a killer, and everybody saying one last goodbye to Holland’s Spidey before he allows himself to be forgotten.
The Bus Fight (Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings)
Easily the most visceral, intense, and well-crafted action sequence of Phase Four so far is the bus fight in Shang-Chi. This sequence comes out of nowhere and kicks off the movie’s action a lot earlier than expected.
The script is still establishing Shang-Chi’s civilian life when a band of Ten Rings assassins brings it crashing down by attacking him on his way to work. Swinging around a moving bus and fighting off a hulking henchman with a machete for an arm, Shang-Chi’s badassery in this sequence sets a very high bar for every subsequent action scene.