Mount Rushmore of Superhero Movies
Superhero movies have dominated the box office for decades now. It started with Superman the Movie in 1978 and is still going strong to this day. With the latest superhero movie being Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I wanted to make a blog post talking about the MOUNT RUSHMORE for superhero movies. What are the best superhero movies out there? What are the most IMPORTANT superhero movies? Those are the questions we are answering today. Let’s get started!
NOTE: For this blog post I’m going to be splitting it into 2 different categories. First category is what I think the most important superhero movies are. Second category, what my four favorite superhero movies are.
MOST IMPORTANT MOVIES: Keep in mind this is just my opinion for I think they are the most important superhero movies. There are several more movies that I could have included on this list but I didn’t.
Superman the Movie: Fitting to start with the movie that started it all for this genre. Prior to this movie coming out the genre really only had Batman the Movie (1966) with Adam West. And then you had several low budget serials with Batman and Shazam! one back in the 1940s. But Superman the Movie released in December 1978 was the film that really started it all for the genre. If it wasn’t for Superman the Movie then this genre might not be where it is today. This movie broke so many barriers with making people believe that a man could actually fly. It made an enormous amount of money, making $300.5 million keep in my mind that’s going based off of 1978 money. In 2023 that is about $1.3 billion, which is a crazy amount of money anyway you spin it. Also, Kevin Feige has said that they watch this movie every time they are about to make a new movie. It’s that iconic and that much of an inspiration. Obviously I wasn’t born when this movie came out but this still is just such a legendary movie. When I was making this list, I knew that this movie was going to make the list.
Batman (1989): So back in the 70s and 80s, there were not a whole lot of comic book movies. When this movie was released I believe that Marvel only released Howard the Duck. DC had the four Christopher Reeve Superman movies and Supergirl and then in summer of 1989 Tim Burton put out Batman (1989). And it kind of redesignated the comic book genre in a way. Where Superman the Movie was a classic and Superman II was really well received, not as good as the first one. And then you had this weird stretch with DC of doing Superman III, Supergirl, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. None of them were received well and didn’t do great at the box office. But Batman (1989) gave people hope again, it was the first Batman movie in over 20 years. It starred Jack Nicholson who was a big deal back in the day. It took Michael Keaton from being this comedic actor starring in Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice and became this guy who people paid attention to a bit more. And at this point in time, Christopher Reeve was done playing Superman. So Michael Keaton was THE comic book movie guy. He was the most prominent superhero for several years there. Plus, Batman (1989) was the first dark comic book movie. The Superman movies were more light hearted fun and kind of goofy. And you watch Batman (1989) and it’s a nice contrast with those movies. This movie is really iconic and made such a big impact on the comic book movie genre.
Spider-Man (2002): Now we are finally getting into the Marvel movies and the first of two I’m mentioning here is the original Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire, Spider-Man (2002). A couple other movies to throw in here would be Blade (1998) and X-Men (2000), those movies laid the foundation for the modern era of blockbusters and then Spider-Man came along and just blew those movies out of the water. Suddenly Marvel made a big splash at the box office. It was the first movie to ever open to over $100 million, so that in itself is groundbreaking. The other thing here is that it helped lay the foundation for the MCU.
Iron Man: Speaking of the MCU, we are going onto the first movie inside the MCU 2008’s Iron Man. The MCU is the biggest movie franchise of all time, and it all started with Iron Man. So much of my love for movies came from the MCU. So without the MCU, I don’t know what my childhood would look like. And then just that fact that it launched this big movie franchise is really something special that Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau, and several others were able to pull off. The MCU is my generation Star Wars’, it’s the thing that I’m so excited to be able to show my kids in 25-30 years, that’s something that I’m so excited for. Plus it gave us Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, one of the best castings in a comic book movie of all time. Certainly one of the best in the last 15-20 years. So there are so many different reasons as to why this movie is one of the four most iconic and important superhero movies ever made. Also, it’s the third comic book movie ever to be entered in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. So that should also be something.
MY FAVORITE MOVIES: When I’m talking about these four movies, these aren’t actually my four favorite superhero movies of all time. But I did want more variety in this list, but these four movies would be in the top 10 favorite superhero movies of all time.
The Incredibles: Quite possibly my favorite animated movie of all time, and I love that this is an original superhero movie. We don’t get very many original superhero movies, so the fact that Pixar made one and it’s fantastic is really cool. They did a great job with the world building for this world populated with heroes. You get some politics as to whether the world should or shouldn’t have superheroes. The whole movie has a great estetic to it with the 1960s James Bond mixed with advanced technology is a great world that you want to see more of. The Incredibles themselves are just such a fun set of characters, a fun family where each of them has something about them that stands out and pops. Then Brad Bird shots the action with side shots and you can see everything that is happening. It’s so dynamic with the way it’s shot and the way they use the powers of the family is really cool as well. And then of course, you get Michael Giachinno’s film score that just pulls the whole movie together and makes it better. So when you put it all together you get a movie with great world building, characters, action, and score so you get one of the best superhero movies of all time. And in my mind, one of the best movies of all time.
The Dark Knight: If you know me you know that I’m a big Batman fan. And I wanted to include a Batman movie here, so I debated going with The Batman. But I had to go with The Dark Knight at the end of the day. This movie means so much to me, and it’s one of those movies that made me love movies. Actually the entire Dark Knight trilogy were some of the movies that helped shape my love for movies. So I decided to go with The Dark Knight for that reason but both movies are fantastic. And this is one of the most celebrated superhero movies of all time and for good reason. Christopher Nolan crafted a movie that works as a comic book movie and as a crime thriller. This movie will still be just as good if Batman and everything DC was stripped away from it. And it’s a very thematic movie exploring ideas as to if the dark knight really is a dark knight and is a white knight always a white knight. Of course you get a legendary performance by Heath Ledger that won him an Oscar and will go down in cinema history as one of the great villain performances of all time. And this entire cast is just fantastic, I mean so many of these actors are who I think of when I think of these characters. When I think of Alfred I think of Michael Caine. When I think of Gordon I think of Gary Oldman. And Christian Bale is my favorite Batman of all time.
Avengers Endgame: You knew that I had to put this movie on this list, and this might just be my favorite movie of all time. I was 14 ½ when this movie came out, so I was like the perfect age to be hyped for this movie. And I saw this movie opening night with a packed crowd of fans that were just as excited as I was and that is the best movie experience of my entire life. And so this movie will always have a special place in my heart as being a great experience to experience with my dad. But as for the movie itself, it’s just such a satisfying conclusion to this 11 year long Infinity Saga with providing great conclusions to Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow’s character arcs. Plus the Avengers actors gave some of their best performances in the MCU. Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. being the stand outs when I say this. And the whole movie leads to an epic finale that literally takes up the last hour of the movie that has some of the best fan service of all time. Every 5-10 minutes was another time when my audience was just losing their minds. It’s a movie that wasn’t just a movie, it was an event film that everybody went to see. This is a movie that is important for my love of movies, it’s that good and I love it so so so much.
Spider-Man: No Way Home: If Endgame was the movie with the most fan service No Way Home is probably the movie with the second most fan service. And this is another movie that had so much hype and anticipated going into it. Going into the movie we knew that the villains from the Sam Raimi universe and Andrew Garfield universe were going to be in the movie. But the big question was whether Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were going to be in the movie. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the answer to the question is yes. Yes, they are in this movie and it’s so awesome and so much to see them on screen. Like the fact that they pulled off having three generations of Spider-Man all in the same movie, in one epic finale is just awesome. I love the fact that we have a movie like this that exists, this movie is truly special and we won’t get very many movies like this. Beyond that, it’s just super clever that they decided to tell Tom Holland’s Spider-Man origin story in his third movie. They structured the movie in such a way to make that possible, where in this movie is when he gets the “with the great power comes great responsibility” speech. It’s cleverly done with its writing and execution. It has big moments of fan service and emotional moments at the same time.
There you have it, 8 picks for the mount rushmore of superhero movies. Four being the most important and four being my personal favorite. What four movies would you put into each of those categories? Also, I’ve done a lot of blog posts talking about my favorite superhero movies. Thanks for reading!
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