Every MCU Origin Story Ranked From ‘Iron Man’ to ‘Shang-Chi’

6. ‘Doctor Strange’ (2016)

While the tale of an arrogant, rich, playboy learning how to be a better person after a life-altering incident sounds familiar, this movie took that premise to create an altogether different MCU experience.

In fact, this is the movie that first began introducing us to the weirder side of Marvel, and “Doctor Strange” has some of the best and trippiest visual sequences of all Marvel films. The final battle between Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and, uh, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dormammu is super smart from Scott Derrickson.

Instead of a city-destroying CGI-fest for which Marvel had begun drawing criticism for overusing, we get a clever, satisfying conclusion. Strange uses his wits and new-found selflessness to defeat his enemy.

It marked a wiser, deeper, and more spiritual turn for the MCU that included discussions about heavy-hitting topics like death and time.