4) Iron Man
Back in the 1960s, Stan Lee created Iron Man as an experiment – he wanted to see if he could create a really unlikeable guy and make the audience love him. In 2008, Marvel Studios likewise decided to tackle turning the billionaire womanizing weapons dealer into everyone’s new favourite superhero. Against all the odds, they managed it.
First of all, they obviously nailed the casting with Robert Downey Jr, the only person we could ever imagine playing Tony Stark. But it’s the movie itself that fleshed him out, putting Tony through the emotional ringer and forcing him to become a better person. In short, Iron Man is the definitive origins movie for this current era of superhero films.
Of course, Iron Man also gets plaudits for not only acting as an origin story for the shellhead but for the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. In what was a revolutionary moment in the genre, Nick Fury turns up for a post-credits scene to introduce the concept of the Avengers…