By the time the Marvel Cinematic Universe got to Phase Three, it was the biggest movie franchise in the world. Phase One stuck the landing with the ambitious crossover event of The Avengers and Phase Two managed to sustain the audience’s interest with a mixture of similarly large-scale epics and refreshingly small-scale adventures.
When Phase Three rolled around, Kevin Feige’s comic book adaptations were effortlessly drawing huge crowds to theaters two or three times a year in a media landscape dominated by streaming services. From returning directors like James Gunn and the Russo brothers to newcomers like Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi, the MCU’s Phase Three was spearheaded by some of the most celebrated and sought-after filmmakers in Hollywood.
Scott Derrickson
Scott Derrickson is traditionally a horror director, but he took a walk on the mystical side to introduce Benedict Cumberbatch’s wisecracking Sorcerer Supreme in 2016’s Doctor Strange. While the first Doctor Strange movie is a more or less conventional origin story, it’s helped by dazzling visual effects and a subversive final battle that specifically avoids the usual city-wide destruction.
For the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel, Derrickson has been replaced by Sam Raimi, a fellow horror filmmaker with a proven track record (and then some) in comic book films.
Peyton Reed
Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man replacement, Peyton Reed, returned for Ant-Man and the Wasp, another fun, lighthearted superhero comedy. This one is a buddy actioner as Hope finally gets her wings and teams up with Scott to fight crime.
The sequel switches out the heist storyline from the first film for an Elmore Leonard-style crime caper about a gangster seeking a shrunken-down laboratory. Ant-Man and the Wasp is just as refreshingly small-scale as the first one, but it was hurt by having to follow Marvel’s biggest, most emotionally devastating epic to date.
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the indie darlings behind such low-budget gems as Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind, were tapped to make their big-budget blockbuster debut with Captain Marvel, the MCU’s first female-led solo superhero movie. Boden and Fleck subverted the expectations of Marvel origins with a movie that opens in media res and follows a nonlinear narrative.
While Brie Larson gives a fantastic performance, Carol Danvers is almost too powerful for her own good. There’s no conflict in the final battle when she can beat up the entire space fleet with her Infinity-powered fists.
Jon Watts
Jon Watts became the first MCU director to see a solo trilogy through to the end with Spider-Man: No Way Home. The filmmaker had previously helmed Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home for Phase Three.
On top of directing Tom Holland’s quintessential performance as Peter Parker, Watts gave every Spidey movie its own identity. Homecoming is a John Hughes-style high school comedy, Far From Home is National Lampoon’s European Vacation with superpowers, and Phase Four’s trilogy-closing No Way Home is an It’s a Wonderful Life-style fantasy parable (crossed with a multiversal team-up).
The Russo Brothers
After revitalizing the MCU’s Steve Rogers in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Russo brothers returned for Cap’s next solo movie, Captain America: Civil War, which ended up being more like Avengers 2.5 incorporating most of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in a storyline with franchise-wide ramifications. After Civil War stuck the landing with Marvel’s most ambitious ensemble crossover to date, Kevin Feige hired the Russos to helm both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
The Russos drew on their experiences balancing the sprawling ensemble casts of shows like Arrested Development and Community to create the template for mega-sized Marvel team-ups. Infinity War ended on a bombshell cliffhanger and Endgame provided an enormous sense of finality (particularly for Rogers and Tony Stark).
James Gunn
James Gunn returned to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 after defying the naysayers to deliver a critical and commercial hit with the first one. Gunn took five of Marvel’s most obscure superheroes and made them globally adored fan-favorites.
The sequel might not be as tightly structured or tonally balanced as the game-changing original Guardians film, but it’s still a solid entry in the MCU and it has Gunn’s idiosyncratic voice in spades.
Taika Waititi
After Kenneth Branagh introduced the MCU’s Thor as a pseudo-Shakespearean superhero and Alan Taylor channeled straightforward medieval fantasy with the first sequel, Taika Waititi finally got it right with Thor: Ragnarok. Drawing on Chris Hemsworth’s sharp comedic abilities and placing fun above all, Ragnarok is a deliriously entertaining comic book adventure imbued with the flashy, lighthearted style of Flash Gordon and Big Trouble in Little China.
Waititi is currently working on the fourth movie, Thor: Love and Thunder. The director came aboard Ragnarok when it was already a few script drafts deep, but he developed Love and Thunder from scratch, so it could be even zanier.
Ryan Coogler
After collaborating on the harrowing true-life drama Fruitvale Station and the wildly popular Rocky reboot Creed, Ryan Coogler and his go-to leading man Michael B. Jordan reunited for Black Panther, the MCU’s first Best Picture nominee. Coogler managed to incorporate poignant social commentary into a crowd-pleasing superhero blockbuster.
Jordan’s Killmonger is one of the all-time greatest on-screen portrayals of a supervillain and the late, great Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa is an inspiring hero for the ages.