Mon, August 10, 2026 at 5:25 PM UTC
The X-Men are arguably the single most popular superhero team in comic-book history. They even made their way to the silver screen long before their Marvel brethren, the Avengers, or DC’s Justice League. The box-office numbers, and certain characters’ enduring appeal even after decades, speak for themselves.
Over the last quarter-century and counting, fans have gotten regular installments in the franchise, including solo adventures that sometimes tie into the overall team-based saga and sometimes don’t.
More importantly, the franchise has jumped around in time — not just with the occasional time-travel subplot, but with different incarnations of the characters across the timeline. It’s not quite Star Wars, but there is an original trilogy, four prequel films, a Wolverine trilogy, and yes, even, a Deadpool trilogy. (Thanks, corporate conglomeration!)
Technically, the franchise contains scenes stretching all the way back to 3600 B.C. and spends time in various centuries before our present 21st. But for all intents and purposes, the chronological viewing order begins in the 1960s, with fresh-faced Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr and their fellow mutants, while the traditional Fox timeline stretches as far into the future as 2029, with the not-so-fresh-faced greybeard Wolverine of Logan.
To help keep things straight, Entertainment Weeklyhas put together an official timeline for how to watch the whole series in chronological order.
X-Men: First Class (2011)
More than a decade after Marvel’s mutants first arrived on screen, the franchise took audiences back to their beginnings. Elements from an aborted Magneto movie were incorporated into First Class, director Matthew Vaughn’s 1960s-set period piece exploring the early days of the powerful telepath Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr, the future Magneto (Michael Fassbender). The film focuses not just on their friendship (and burgeoning rivalry), but also on Charles’ relationship with his adopted sister, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), the soon-to-be Mystique.
The story involves Xavier working with CIA agent Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne) to help stop a mutant organization called the Hellfire Club, led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and Emma Frost (January Jones).
First Class may not have been the first X-Menfilm, but if you’re looking at things chronologically, it’s where the main story begins.
Where to watch X-Men: First Class: Disney+
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
An adaptation of the Chris Claremont/John Byrne comic storyline, Days of Future Past provides an opportunity to bring together the casts of First Classand the original trilogy.
The film starts in the future, a dystopian 2023 in which mutant-hunting robots called Sentinels have been programmed to destroy mutants — as well as humans whose genes could eventually produce mutant offspring. As a result, the only way to guarantee the continued survival of mutantkind is for Professor X (Patrick Stewart) to help send Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) consciousness back to 1973 and prevent the assassination of the Sentinels’ creator, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage).
It’s a mind-bending, paradox-filled plot that once again revolves around McAvoy and Fassbender’s younger versions of familiar characters while also giving Quicksilver (Evan Peters) an iconic introduction.
Where to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past:Disney+
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Okay, no one particularly likes it, but this one’s still canon. After completing an initial X-Men trilogy, 20th Century Fox decided to try single-character entries. And who better to start with than Logan? Directed by Tsotsi’s Gavin Hood, X-Men Origins: Wolverinegave Jackman the opportunity to explore his signature character’s complex history.
After starting in the 1800s and taking viewers through an amazing montage of Logan and his half-brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber), fighting through major wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, the film settles into its main story several years after the Vietnam War, exploring how Logan got his adamantium skeleton and his connection to Major William Stryker (Danny Huston). The film is best remembered for featuring a very un-mouthy version of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool.
Where to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Disney+
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Picking up the pieces after Days of Future Past, this adventure takes place in 1983, in an era of the X-Men in which Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) is just starting to manifest his powers and thus joins Professor Xavier at his School for Gifted Youngsters. The big bad in this film is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), a.k.a. Apocalypse, an ancient mutant. Entombed since 3600 B.C., he’s set free and promptly goes about trying to remake the world to match his beliefs about the proper path forward for humanity.
Other younger versions of mutants we met before (in the future) include Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler. Meanwhile, Olif Psylocke than the one featured in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand
Where to watch X-Men: Apocalypse: Disney+
Dark Phoenix (2019)
Dark Phoenix is an attempt to revisit a storyline previously tackled, somewhat haphazardly, in X-Men: The Last Stand, i.e. Jean Grey’s transformation into the immensely powerful Phoenix and her eventual death.
Unfortunately, this new take turned out to be… not great. Despite bringing back the majority of the cast from X-Men: Apocalypse and adding Jessica Chastain as Vuk, an alien leader intent on capturing Jean and using her power to conquer Earth, the end result is a messy piece of work that fails to capture the magic of the original Claremont/Byrne storyline. Even devoted comics fans weren’t interested: Sophie Turner’s second and final go-round as Jean Grey was a box-office flop.
Where to watch Dark Phoenix: Disney+
X-Men (2000)
Efforts to bring the X-Men from the comics to the silver screen stretched back years before 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights in 1994. It then took another six years — and multiple scripts and treatments — to finally make it happen.
Directed by Bryan Singer, this first X-Men film — and as of this writing, the sixth chronologically — introduces the grown-up versions of many characters who would define the franchise for decades: Professor X (Stewart), Wolverine (Jackman), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Storm (Halle Berry), and Cyclops (James Marsden). And, of course, the villainous (or just misunderstood?) Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his cohort Mystique (Rebecca Romijn).
Remarkably, X-Men successfully distills several decades of human-versus-mutant storylines into a mere 104 minutes.
X2: X-Men United (2003)
Inspired heavily by God Loves, Man Kills, Claremont’s iconic 1982 graphic novel, X2brought back the characters from the first film while expanding the roles of mutants like Pyro and Colossus and introducing newcomers including Nightcrawler and Lady Deathstrike. The film pits the whole lot of them against William Stryker (Brian Cox), a genocidal military man whose desire to rid the planet of all mutants is so thoroughly despicable that it brings the X-Men and Magneto and his allies together to fight him.
Once again directed by Singer, it’s arguably the best X-Men movie of them all — certainly the best under Singer’s tenure — and ends by setting up one of the most famous Jean Grey storylines in comic-book history.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
With Singer deciding to step away from the franchise for this third installment, Brett Ratner stepped in to helm The Last Stand, which borrows from the famous “Dark Phoenix” storyline: Jean Grey, seemingly dead at the end of the previous film, is back and has turned evil. It also incorporates a plotline about a possible mutant “cure,” one that many fear will be used to eradicate all of mutantkind.
Along with the usual X-suspects, the cast expands to introduce Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), and Angel (Ben Foster), while Elliot Page takes over the role of Kitty Pryde. Although it wasn’t received as well critically, it made more money than either of its predecessors, thereby ensuring another installment.
Where to watch X-Men: The Last Stand: Disney+
The Wolverine (2013)
Given the character’s enduring popularity, it was practically a given that Wolverine would get another solo adventure after Origins. The conclusion of The Last Stand left a dangling plot thread that perfectly teed it up: Logan’s residual guilt over being forced to kill Jean Grey to save the planet.
In James Mangold’s The Wolverine, Logan has retreated to the Yukon to live in solitude. He’s found by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mutant hired by Ichiro Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) to bring our hero to Japan so he can repay a life debt.
Logan isn’t interested, but in short order finds himself caught up in a plot to kidnap Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), in what becomes a thrilling and tactile chase thriller involving the Yakuza.
Where to watch The Wolverine: Disney+
Deadpool (2016)
Although Ryan Reynolds technically debuted as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, that portrayal was in no way representative of the popular comics version. That was remedied by Deadpool, arguably the most true-in-spirit adaptation imaginable — to the point where he breaks the fourth wall specifically to make fun of his widely criticized earlier portrayal.
Fast-paced, incredibly violent, and filthy while also being surprisingly romantic thanks to Deadpool’s relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Deadpool was a smash hit.
In terms of its ties with the larger X-Men universe, this origin story makes light of Deadpool’s reluctance to join the superhero establishment — though he and devoted X-Men team player Colossus make an adorable buddy pair, and teen mutant Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) provides the necessary superhero firepower.
Where to watch Deadpool: Disney+
Deadpool 2 (2018)
The antihero known as “The Merc with a Mouth” returns for his second adventure, this time finding himself entangled with Cable (Josh Brolin), a time-traveling soldier hunting mutant child Russell Collins (Julian Dennison), who — if certain events come to pass — will eventually kill Cable’s wife and daughter.
The cast once again includes Baccarin as Vanessa and T.J. Miller as Deadpool’s best friend, Weasel, along with such other Marvel characters as Domino (Zazie Beetz), the villainous Juggernaut, and Black Tom Cassidy (Jack Kesy).
The film also famously concludes with a time-traveling montage in which Deadpool messes with all kinds of canonical details… but for the purposes of this list, we’ll just let it be.
Where to watch Deadpool 2: Disney+
The New Mutants (2020)
The one true outlier in the X-Menfranchise — the one, truth be told, most people forget exists — is this coming-of-age/horror hybrid. Repeatedly delayed before being dumped into theaters in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Mutantsboasted the burgeoning star power of Anya Taylor-Joy, but was an instant afterthought nonetheless.
Chronologically predating the childhood experimentation explored through Dafne Keen’s character in Logan, The New Mutantsrevolves around a group of teenagers at a mysterious hospital — ostensibly one designed for kids with very special, very dangerous abilities — that, needless to say, has a sinister purpose. The film even connects its experiments to those seen in Logan. (No, Eleven from Stranger Thingsdoes not appear, but the cast doesinclude Charlie Heaton as Cannonball.)
Where to watch The New Mutants: Disney+
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
At long last, the process of bringing the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins, starting with the unbridled weirdness that is Deadpool. Here, he teams with a Wolverine from an alternate universe (still played by Jackman, of course) in an effort to stop a rogue Time Variance Authority official — from the organization introduced on Loki — from destroying Deadpool’s timeline.
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with ourEW Dispatch newsletter.
For die-hard fans, it’s incredibly fun to see the madcap Deadpool interacting with the otherwise-sane MCU, but it’s an even bigger hoot to see the title characters teaming up with heroes from other alternate cinematic universes, including Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Blade (Wesley Snipes), the Human Torch (Chris Evans), and Gambit (Channing Tatum). It’s a perfect way to wrap up the old X-Men stories and prepare for the new ones.
Where to watch Deadpool & Wolverine: Disney+
Logan (2017)
It’s fair to say there’s no other X-Men film like Logan — ostensibly a dystopian Western, but with superpowers — and that’s by design. Set in 2029 in a future where no mutants have been born in 25 years, Jackman plays an older, grizzlier Wolverine, one whose healing factor is fading as his adamantium skeleton slowly poisons him.
Splitting his time between working as a limo driver to make ends meet and taking care of Charles Xavier, who is suffering from dementia, Logan finds himself protecting Laura (Dafne Keen), a.k.a. X-23, an 11-year-old girl with very similar powers to his own. Again directed by Mangold, Logan is definitely the darkest X-Men film — brace yourself for the ending — and arguably the most critically acclaimed.
How to watch the X-Menmovies in chronological order:
-
X-Men: Days of Future Past(2014)
-
X-Men Origins: Wolverine(2009)
How to watch the X-Menmovies in release order:
-
X-Men Origins: Wolverine(2009)
-
X-Men: Days of Future Past(2014)
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
