The Best Year For Superhero Movies Dominated By One Studio

The best superhero movie year started off strong with Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, which tragically proved to be the only Marvel movie led by the late Chadwick Boseman. In a rare turn for a superhero movie, Black Panther was nominated for 6 Oscars and brought 3 statues home. It smashed through the billion dollar mark, raking in a worldwide gross of $1.375 billion.

Black Panther was followed hard in the best superhero movie year by Avengers: Infinity War—the film that brought together almost every single hero from the MCU and finally gave Josh Brolin the chance to stun audiences with his incredible performance as Thanos. Infinity War delivered what remains the most devastating cliffhanger in the MCU, and took home over $2 billion for its trouble.

The first non-Marvel Studios superhero flick to release in the best superhero movie year, Deadpool 2 refused to be completely outshined by the event film Infinity War. Along with delivering the same raunchy humor and gore as its predecessor, Deadpool 2 gave fans the birth and mercilessly swift death of the big screen X-Force, as well as a CGI-rendered Juggernaut erasing the stink of the styrofoam-helmeted version in X-Men: The Last Stand.

Considering how huge the original film was, it’s still surprising it took 14 years for Pixar’s Incredibles 2 to materialize. Perhaps because it rejoined pop culture at a time much more crowded with superhero movies, Incredibles 2 wasn’t quite as memorable as its predecessor. Still, it made $1.2 billion, proving to be one of the highest grossing films of the best superhero movie year.

Ant-Man & The Wasp probably isn’t on anyone’s Top 5 list of Best Marvel Movies, but looking back it was definitely a hit. It made $622 million at the box office, and while that wasn’t much compared to the other MCU blockbusters of the best superhero movie year, it was more than either 2016’s Ant-Man or the 2023 mistake that was Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.

The most criminally forgotten film of the best superhero movie year is Teen Titans GO! To The Movies. The hilarious animated film is filled with more industry references than Deadpool 2 and is a lot more family-friendly. Its $52.4 million worldwide gross isn’t much compared to 2018’s other superhero flicks, but compared to its $10 million production budget and a movie year filled with capes, its returns were pretty great.

You’re not going to find a lot of critics complaining Venom got snubbed by the Oscars. Regardless, by taking in $856 million gross during a time of the year that historically isn’t friendly to blockbusters, Tom Hardy’s first shot at the superhero game earned its spot and then some.

Phrases like “best superhero movie of all time” were being used by every other critic when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hit theaters. A visual delight and a fun superhero flick, it created a new gold standard.

While the franchise ultimately proved to be another victim of the death of the DCEU, in 2018 Aquaman was one of the few signs of hope to DC fans. Earning $1.1 billion, Aquaman ended the best superhero movie year with a huge splash.