The 25 Best Superhero Movies Ever

For the last few decades, superheroes have reigned supreme over popular culture.

View in Browser  Tuesday, July 29, 2025 Rankings can feel like a cheap ploy for attention–clickbait, as people like to claim. At Esquire, however, we take our rankings seriously. We report them out. We spend time thinking about the lists and arguing over them. Our latest is a lightning rod: the best superhero movies ever. Take a look. Leave a comment. Let the debate begin.   – Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief   Plus: Trump went down a deranged rabbit hole during meeting with the European Commission President The dos and don'ts of wearing a men's swimsuit this summer Inside Pharrell Williams's next-level luxury watch auction The 25 Best Superhero Movies of All Time From Superman to The Dark Knight, these are the movies that hold true staying power. For the last few decades, superheroes have reigned supreme over popular culture. Though their origins are rooted in comic books, franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe rule the box office and fundamentally change how we interact with movies. Still, only a handful superhero movies deserve recognition as some of the best of all time. Even as superhero movies—and certainly their budgets—grow bigger and better, it doesn't matter whether their powers come from radioactive spiders or magical rings from outer space. As Spider-Man's uncle famously says, "with great power, comes great responsibility." Superhero movies are all about good triumphing over evil, and that's a feeling that never gets old. With James Gunn's Superman and Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps proving that superhero movies are here to stay, here are 25 of the best superhero movies ever. READ THE STORY Kathy Hochul had one of the few sane responses to yesterday's mass shooting. The New York governor lambasted the federal government for not cracking down on weapons of war as home furnishings. Charles P. Pierce breaks down both mass shootings. >>   What it feels like to survive tongue cancer. This chef formed a craft chocolate company with his wife, but a year later was diagnosed with tongue cancer. A former sous chef at a Michelin-star restaurant tells Chris Hatler. >> The Houston Superlawyer Who's Not Afraid to Take On Diddy, Deshaun Watson, and Shannon Sharpe "When somebody says there's a shark in the water, everybody runs." Leaning back in his chair with his brown leather boots propped up on the desk, Tony Buzbee gazes out the window of his office on the seventy-fifth floor of the tallest building in Texas, basking in his own personal shark tank. The feisty, flamboyant personal-injury attorney is more than a little obsessed with the ocean's scariest hunters. His cavernous workspace here in downtown Houston is decorated with gold sharks, silver sharks, a marble shark sculpture, and shark-shaped doorknobs. And he's quick to pull up his shirtsleeve to show me the shark tattoo on his right forearm. His private jet even has a shark decoration on the tail. By Timothy Bella How a Brutal Beer War Led to the Downfall of the Brewery That Made Milwaukee Famous In the brutal beer wars of the sixties and seventies, Bob Martin was a general. His influence extended far beyond ad campaigns and sales strategies. He was the power behind the power, the guy who knew how to get things done—legally or in other ways. But this is much more than a story about a marketing guy on the edge. It's the tale of how a billion-dollar empire imploded. Because Schlitz wasn't just a beer manufacturer; it was a ticking time bomb of illegal activity. The company would eventually find itself at the heart of a 747-count indictment by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It would alienate its customers with sludgy beer and in-your-face TV advertising gone wrong. And it would start to fully unravel with a young prosecutor simply opening a desk drawer. By David Bourgeois and Michael Lander Follow Us Unsubscribe | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Esquire is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2025 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779