Marvel has been making superhero movies for well over a decade, but one of the most common refrains you hear about them is that the action they contain is bland or forgettable. That may be true in the aggregate, but the MCU has created plenty of standout action over the course of its existence, and we’re going to highlight the very best of those sequences below.
10. Tony, Steve, and Thor vs. Thanos, Avengers: Endgame
Before the battle for the galaxy that makes up much of Endgame’s final act, we get a more intimate battle between the three core Avengers and Thanos, and it’s one for the ages. Although they aren’t quite able to beat the mad Titan, by working together, they get pretty close. The fight is best remembered for the iconic moment when Cap picks up Thor’s hammer, but that undersells how well choreographed the fight is from jump. It may be mostly CGI, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive to watch.
9. The Elevator Fight, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The Winter Soldier introduced the Russo brothers to the MCU, and it also contains the most iconic fight sequence from any Captain America film. The set up is remarkably simple: Cap is in an elevator, and he begins to realize that everyone around him is there to subdue him. He manages to take them all down, but it’s a slow, arduous, fairly brutal process that’s unlike much of the slick action that dominates these films. The elevator fight is just a little messy, and that’s what makes it so fun to watch.
8. The Battle on Titan, Avengers: Infinity War
Tony, Peter, Dr. Strange and the Guardians come up with a pretty solid plan for taking on Thanos, and if Star-Lord could keep his temper under control it would’ve worked. Both before and after they almost rip the glove off of Thanos’s hand, the action is clear and well-staged, and we understand both how powerful Thanos is and how carefully Tony and team have thought through how to handle him. Even Mantis gets a role to play here, and it’s arguably more essential than anyone else’s.
7. Ying Li vs. Wenwu, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
The first fight scene in Shang-Chi is part fight and part dance, and all the better for its ability to combine those two elements. When Wenwu meets Ying Li, the two flirt, and Wenwu is intrigued by her in part because she can defeat him in combat. The entire emotional core of the movie is set up in these opening moments, which are both playful and beautiful to behold. Even before the opening credits are over, we already know we’re in for a different style of Marvel action.
6. Black Panther vs. Killmonger, Black Panther
It’s not the most impressive choreography or the craziest idea for a fight, but few fights have the kind of emotional immediacy than T’Challa’s first duel with Killmonger packs. T’Challa is fighting to defend the throne he just won, and his ultimate defeat is as shocking as it is inevitable. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger is so focused, so intense, that it’s hard to imagine even a warrior as mighty as T’Challa standing in his way. T’Challa falls, and Killmonger rises as the new King of Wakanda.
5. The First Hallway Oner, Daredevil
Charlie Cox’s recent cameo in No Way Home confirms that his Daredevil remains a part of the MCU, and that means that his first hallway fight is eligible for this list. That fight sequence, which is a single take and involves large amounts of off-camera action, remains one of the most daring things that the MCU has ever attempted. It doesn’t rise to the level of the best action from outside the MCU, but it gets pretty close, and on a TV show that most people don’t think of all that frequently anymore.
4. Battle of Wakanda, Avengers: Infinity War
The Battle of Wakanda is the epic conclusion to Infinity War, and while it ends in defeat, there’s plenty of triumph to be found in it. The movie’s most notable cheer-inducing moment comes when Thor enters the battlefield, and that moment certainly lives up to the hype. There’s also Wanda’s emergence on the field of play, as well as the final horrific attempts to stop an all-powerful Thanos from achieving his final goal. None of them had the strength to keep him from the stones, but we loved watching the effort the Avengers displayed as they tried to.
3. Dr. Strange vs. Dr. Strange, Dr. Strange in the Multi-verse of Madness
In terms of sheer creativity, this fight sequence may take the cake. Director Sam Raimi brings an off-the-wall visual flair to many of the sequences in this Dr. Strange sequel, but the one where you can feel him the most is in this fight between two versions of Dr. Strange. Instead of just firing beams at one another, Raimi decides that the Strange we’re more familiar with will shoot magic notes at his opponent, and the rest of the fight doubles as a symphony where every note is carefully deployed.
2. Avengers Assemble, The Avengers
The fight that closes out the first Avengers movie is among the most virtuosic in the MCU, in part because it seems to unlock the full potential of all of these heroes working in tandem with one another. The simulated long take at the center of the sequence may not look totally real, but it looks real enough for us to understand the way Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man all work together to save the city of New York. Here at last was proof that Marvel’s project could work, and it would set them up for at least another decade of success.
1. Battle on a Bus, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
By a pretty wide margin, the best choreographed fights on this list come from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. That’s because, although it eventually descends into a battle between various forms of CGI goop, it starts with a series of smaller scale fights that showcase some truly wonderful fight choreography. None of those fights is more inventive than the battle on the bus that happens early in the film, when Simu Liu gets a chance to show off his expertise as a martial artist and do a series of increasingly deranged things with his body.