X-Men was the first true Marvel movie and it was the spark that ignited the dominance of the superhero movie genre in the 21st century, but, unfortunately, its legacy has been tarnished in the 20 years since its release. Directed by Bryan Singer and written by David Hayter, X-Men stars Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X, Ian McKellan as Erik Lensherr/Magneto, and it marked the Hollywood debut of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, a role that would make him a superstar.

Unlike its rival DC Comics, which scored with blockbuster films about Superman and Batman, Marvel's only real hit movie was 1998's Blade before X-Men arrived on the scene on July 14, 2000. For decades, The Uncanny X-Men was Marvel Comics' crown jewel property but a movie had been in development hell since 1984, with filmmakers like James Cameron, Andrew Kevin Walker, and Joss Whedon all unable to bring X-Men to the big screen. After directing the critically-acclaimed The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer was a prestigious choice to direct X-Men. While he was not initially a fan of the comics, X-Men's themes of prejudice resonated with Singer. Eschewing the campy, comic-book aesthetic that sank Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin in 1997, Singer chose to ground his X-Men film in a more realistic world that becomes injected with the reality of dangerous superpowered mutants living among society and being persecuted for being "different".

Related: The Complete X-Men Movie Timeline Explained (From 2000 To Dark Phoenix)

Taking a cue from how one of his filmmaker idols, Richard Donner, cast Superman: The Movie, Singer hired highly-respected, Shakespearean actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan for the roles of the feuding patriarchs of mutantkind, Professor X and Magneto. (Singer would later leave X-Men to direct his homage to Donner's film, Superman Returns, in 2006.) Stewart and McKellan lent instant credibility to X-Men, as did casting Academy Award-winner Anna Paquin as Rogue. James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops, Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey, Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm, Ray Park as Toad, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique, and Tyler Mane as Sabretooth rounded out the cast and complemented Hugh Jackman's feral, star-making arrival as Logan AKA the Wolverine.

Two decades later, Marvel Studios boasts the most popular superhero movies in the world after 23 movies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony's Spider-Man franchise was also, initially, a massive success before studio mismanagement brought the web-slinger into the MCU. Indeed, even DC Films, which has its share of billion-dollar hits and high-profile failures, struggles to match what Marvel Studios has accomplished. But it was really X-Men, which spawned its own mutant franchise for Fox, in addition to films about Daredevil and Fantastic Four, that blazed the path for every superhero movie triumph in the 21st century. Simply put, it was the mutants of X-Men who really put Marvel movies on the map.

X-Men Properly Brought Marvel's Flawed Heroes To The Big Screen

Professor Xavier about to enter Cerebro in 2000's X-Men

The secret to Marvel's success is how their superheroes are flawed but relatable people who oftentimes see their superhuman abilities as a simultaneous curse and a benefit. X-Men brought the distinctive Marvel formula full-blown into the big screen, where the mutants' powers are seen as both special gifts but also a danger to others. This is epitomized by the film's dual POV characters, Wolverine and Rogue, who are plunged into the bizarre war between Charles Xavier's X-Men and Magneto's mutant terrorist sect called the Brotherhood. In fact, an early scene between Rogue and Logan where he admits that popping his claws hurts him "every time" is eclipsed in tragedy only by Rogue later confessing that her life-draining mutant power placed the first boy she ever kissed into a coma for three weeks. In X-Men, even the superheroes question what the right way to use their powers to help mankind is, and the threat of the Xavier School being discovered as a haven for mutants and persecuted by humans always looms over the heroes.

Today, X-Men feels a bit dated; its screenplay is sparse and economical, the action scenes are relatively subdued, and the film has long since been eclipsed by both its own sequels and the multitudes of other superhero movies. However, X-Men delivered a verisimilitude that hadn't been seen in the genre before and it carefully built a complex and dangerous world that the sequels would later flesh out fully. Most importantly, X-Men's triumph is that it made a gruff loner with machetes that pop from his knuckles, a bald, wheelchair-bound psychic, an African weather goddess, an acrobatic blue shapeshifter, and a regal megalomaniac who controls metal into full-blown, realistic people audiences could believe in. Moreso, the X-Men literally protects a world that hates and fears them and they were never allowed to forget it. Even when Jean Grey argued for mutant rights at the United Nations, she was shouted down by Senator Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison).

Related: Every X-Men Movie Ranked Worst To Best

X-Men Was The First Superhero Team Movie That Foreshadowed The Avengers

The X-Men team in 2000

If it weren't for X-Men, there would be no Avengers because Bryan Singer's movie introduced audiences to the concept of the superhero team. Prior to X-Men, the biggest superhero movies were about Superman and Batman, although the Dark Knight got helpers in Robin and Batgirl in Joel Schumacher's films. But X-Men and its sequels introduced an astounding number of mutant characters and it also established comic book staples like their headquarters, the X-Mansion, and the X-Jet. Crucially, X-Men pioneered the world-saving, dysfunctional superhero family that the Avengers ultimately became because Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was a producer on X-Men and took the lessons he learned to heart.

In Marvel's stories, superheroes don't always get along, and such personality conflicts were built into X-Men, especially Logan's rivalry with Cyclops because of their love triangle with Jean Grey. Wolverine openly mocked the X-Men's uniforms and codenames, flipped Cyclops the finger with one of his claws, and called him "a d*ck." In addition, while Magneto's goals were inherently malevolent, his hatred of humans was rooted in his past as a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, which is a heartwrenching origin story for the X-Men's greatest villain. But it was X-Men's trailblazing of Marvel's complex characters and relationships that ultimately led to audiences taking sides between Tony Stark's Team Iron Man and Steve Rogers's Team Cap in Captain America: Civil War and the dozens of heroes thrillingly teaming up in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

X-Men Had Marvel's First Great Sequel And First Disappointing Sequel

Wolverine-kills-Jean-Grey-Dark-Phoenix-in-X-Men-3-The-Last-Stand

Arriving a year before Spider-Man 2, Bryan Singer's X2: X-Men United in 2003 was the first great Marvel sequel. A deliriously thrilling escalation of everything X-Men set up, X2 deepened the character relationships, explored Wolverine's origin, and integrated the young mutants like Rogue, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) into the action. In fact, Magneto seducing Pyro into turning on the Xavier School and joining the Brotherhood was the first major hero betrayal in a superhero movie. In addition, X2 delivered the first great superhero cliffhanger with Jean Grey's death, which ignited years of fan speculation that she would transform into Dark Phoenix in the next sequel. X2: X-Men United is still ranked high by fans as one of the best superhero movies ever.

Alternately, Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006 again predated Spider-Man 3 as the first infuriatingly disappointing Marvel sequel. The Last Stand committed numerous sins like shortchanging both the original characters and the new additions like Angel (Ben Foster), turning the hotly-anticipated Dark Phoenix Saga into the film's nonsensical B-plot, and ruthlessly killing characters like Cyclops and Professor X without giving their losses proper emotional heft. X-Men: The Last Stand was the first dip in what would become a roller-coaster run for the overall X-Men franchise over the next 13 years.

Related: Fox's X-Men Movies Are Better Than Marvel Fans Will Admit

X-Men's Uneven Franchise Had A Sad Ending

Jennifer Lawrence and Sophie Turner in Dark Phoenix

After X-Men: The Last Stand, the X-Men franchise experienced incredible highs and lows, with immensely popular spinoffs like 2016's Deadpool and 2017's Logan making up for embarrassing misfires like X-Men: Origins Wolverine. The mainline X-Men movies themselves experienced a renaissance in the 2010s with Matthew Vaughn's Cold War spy thriller X-Men: First Class rebooting the saga in 2011 with a younger cast, followed by Bryan Singer returning to direct the fantastic X-Men: Days of Future Past, which brought the two generations of X-Men together.

In a post-Avengers movie marketplace, X-Men proved to still be competitive and relevant, although, sadly it wasn't to last. Fans regarded 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse as a cartoonishly overblown disappointment, and writer-director Simon Kinberg's second stab at adapting The Dark Phoenix Saga failed spectacularly. 2019's Dark Phoenix is an unfortunate final nail in the original X-Men franchise's coffin, especially now that the mutants are due to be rebooted and integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the coming years. But while the X-Men's tarnished legacy is too often remembered for its mistakes, stripped down to its base essence, X-Men is about hope. The original X-Men film's true success is that it gave Marvel movies the hope they needed for a better future, which fans have enjoyed ever since.

Next: The X-Men Characters With The Most Movie Appearances