The Correct Order To Watch The Captain America Movies
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created Captain America in 1940 as a symbol of American propaganda. Enhanced by a powerful steroid, Steve Rogers was given over to the American military, given a colorful, American flag costume, and ordered to pummel Nazis. Indeed, on the cover of "Captain America Comics" #1, Steve can be seen punching Adolf Hitler in the face (an image that, sadly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe did not have the temerity to recreate). After WWII ended, Captain America has been adrift in Marvel Comics, only finding usefulness as the leader of a ragtag group of other superbeings. It's astonishing how successful the character has been in the last 60 years or so, given that he clearly exists as a still-living relic of the Greatest Generation.
In 1944, Captain America first appeared in cinemas as the star of a 15-part Republic Pictures serial starring Dick Purcell. The character was altered dramatically for the serial, however. Instead of a weakling soldier named Steve Roger enhanced by steroids, Captain American was now an attorney named Grant Gardner who merely moonlit as a masked vigilante. The Marvel Comics version of Captain America wouldn't return until a 1979 TV movie, but would appear earlier as an ironic version of himself (Peter Fonda) in Dennis Hopper's 1969 film "Easy Rider," a film that exists as a criticism of the hoo-rah patriotism Captain America represented. For today's purposes, "Easy Rider" counts as a Captain America movie.
Starting in 2011, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has featured Cap regularly in their high-budget movies. The character, played by Chris Evans, starred in seven features and had cameos in three others (four if you count the time Loki turned into him). A new MCU film is due in 2025.
All told, there are 16 Captain America movies.
The release order
Here, then, are all of the "Captain America" movies in release order, including (perhaps cheekily) "Easy Rider," as well as the character's cameo appearances in post-credit sequences in other MCU movies:
- "Captain America" (1944)
- "Easy Rider" (1969)
- "Captain America" (1979)
- "Captain America II: Death Too Soon" (1979)
- "Captain America" (1990)
- "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011)
- "The Avengers" (2012)
- "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014)
- "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015)
- "Ant-Man" (2015)
- "Captain America: Civil War" (2016)
- "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (2017)
- "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)
- "Captain Marvel" (2019)
- "Avengers: Endgame" (2019)
- "Captain America: Brave New World" (2025)
As mentioned, Chris Evans also had a brief appearance in the 2013 film "Thor: The Dark World," but techically, he was a shape-shifting character named Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who only transformed into Captain America for a few seconds. That hardly counts. The upcoming "Captain America: Brave New World" will not feature Evans but Anthony Mackie as the new Captain America, a transformation he underwent in the Disney+ miniseries "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" (2021). There was also an MCU Captain America spinoff TV series in 2015 called "Agent Carter," although Cap doesn't play a major role in that series.
The two "Captain America" movies from 1979 starred Red Brown as a laidback, "Easy Rider"-type character who alternately drove a van and rode a motorcycle. Because the 1979 movies are set in the present, Cap is not a soldier, but the child of the original Captain America. In this story, he was administered an experimental steroid following an accident, becoming a legacy superhero. Like "Easy Rider," these Cap TV movies are deliberately anti-jingoistic, and feel far away from all the other movies.
The MCU timeline
The 1990 "Captain America" was also an odd duck. Directed by the late, great Albert Pyun, the 1990 film was incredibly low-budget and starred Matt Salinger (J.D.'s son) as Cap. That film featured an intro in the 1940s, but then saw Cap frozen in a glacier for several decades. This is a plot point taken from Marvel Comics, and repeated in the 2011 MCU movie. The film's cheapness is its most prominent feature, and many have noticed that the Captain America costume sports rubber, flesh-colored ears on the sides, and not Salinger's actual ears. It's corny, but then, the character is corny.
Because of the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most of the films in the above list are part of that continuity. Just to be thorough, here is a separate list of the MCU Captain America movies, along with the connected TV shows, allowing viewers to construct their own 13-part Cap epic, should they so choose.
- "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011)
- "The Avengers" (2012)
- "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014)
- "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015)
- "Ant-Man" (2015) (post-credits cameo)
- "Agent Carter" (2015 – 2016) (two seasons)
- "Captain America: Civil War" (2016)
- "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (2017) (cameo only)
- "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)
- "Captain Marvel" (2019) (post-credits cameo)
- "Avengers: Endgame" (2019)
- "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" (2021) (miniseries)
At the end of "Avengers: Endgame," Captain America retired, having gone back in time to live a normal life, and aging into the present as an old man. Now elderly, Cap haded his signature shield to Anthony Mackie. There has been some talk of Evans returning for another future film.
It's odd that he never rose above the rank of Captain. Shouldn't he at least be Major America or Lieutenant Colonel America by now?