The MCU Movie With The Highest Rotten Tomatoes Score
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had its fair share of ups and downs. Some movies, like "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Spider-Man: Homecoming" have been runaway successes. Others, like "The Eternals" and "The Marvels," bombed at the box office. With dozens of entries in the MCU catalog to date, it's easy to lose track of which movies are considered better than the rest. If you're wondering which one has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score (according to the Tomatometer rating system), the unsurprising answer is 2018's "Black Panther."
The Ryan Coogler-directed superhero flick has a Tomatometer score of 96% (along with a solid 79% audience score—although that isn't great compared to other MCU films, as we'll see in a minute).
When released, the film was a hallmark addition to the MCU canon. It confidently increased Marvel's on-screen diversity with a stellar lead character and cast. The movie made well over a billion dollars during its theatrical run, and even landed Marvel Studios' first nomination for best picture at the Oscars. Despite the tragic and unexpected death of T'Challa actor Chadwick Boseman in 2020, the movie also spawned a sequel and a "Black Panther" animated series.
The highest rated MCU project isn't Black Panther
Words are everything. So let's play the semantics game for a minute. While the highest Tomatometer rating for an MCU movie goes to T'Challa and company's debut, "Black Panther" doesn't top the list of MCU IPs on Rotten Tomatoes' leaderboard. That honor goes to the Disney+ show "Ms. Marvel," which sneaks ahead of "Black Panther" with a Tomatometer score of 98% and an Audience rating of 80%.
"Black Panther" comes right after this (as of this writing). Interestingly, the film is immediately followed by two other non-movie MCU events: "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special." After that, we don't get another MCU series until the 9th and 10th-place spots, which are filled by "Hawkeye" and "WandaVision," respectively.
For over a decade the MCU consisted of gigantic tentpole events. These included trips to the theater to watch full-length features on opening weekend. And yet, just a few years after the studios' first Disney+ series released, half of its highest ranking projects come from the streaming side of its business. It's an interesting fact, considering Bob Iger's regret about Disney+ creating too much content too fast. If the focus is to scale back to improve quality, perhaps the top of the MCU's Rotten Tomatoes rankings will be dominated by streaming content before long.
What other MCU movies rank high on the list?
Streaming series and specials aside, what other MCU movies ranked high on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rankings after "Black Panther?" Much like T'Challa's own film, the first few names are no surprise. The next movie as you slide down the chart is "Avengers: Endgame" (94%) followed by "Iron Man," (94%) "Spider-Man: No Way Home," (93%) and "Thor: Ragnarok" (93%).
Those five, along with the aforementioned quintet of streaming IPs, round out the top ten. Interestingly, this leaves several classic MCU films out of this top tier. "Guardians of the Galaxy," for instance, has the 13th highest score, while "Avengers" and "Captain America: Civil War" come in 17th and 18th place. And "Avengers: Infinity War"? Thanos' Galaxy-spanning Infinity Stone chase ranks 30th overall.
To be clear, this is the critic's side of Rotten Tomatoes' unique ranking system (which is more important than you might think).The system consists of critical consensus, whereas the Audience score represents a more balanced view of what all viewers think of each film. If you were to rework the rankings based on Audience Score, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" would rise to the first place spot. Interestingly, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" would come in 4th place in this ranking, while "Black Panther" would take an "Infinity-War-"esque slide into 34th place.