How to watch all the X-Men movies in order (release and chronological)

With the X-Men set to make their MCU debut once and for all next year, there's never been a better time to catch up with all the X-Men movies in order. Of course, 2024's Deadpool and Wolverine brought back Wolverine and several other pre-MCU Marvel heroes, but Avengers: Doomsday is set to kick things up a notch.

Everyone from Patrick Stewart's Professor X to Ian McKellen's Magneto and James Marsden's Cyclops is set to return in the upcoming Marvel Phase 6 movie, but it's likely they won't stick around for long. According to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, a new, younger generation of mutants will be Earth-616's version of the X-Men.

If you've decided to binge-watch the series ahead of Doomsday, you'll need to decide if you're going to watch the films in release order or in the order laid out by the X-Men timeline – which is easier said than done. But that's where we come in. Head to the below for the only guide you need to watching the X-Men movies in order.

How to watch the X-Men movies in order: release order

Best for: Our recommended viewing experience.

By watching all the X-Men movies in release order, newcomers get to experience the stories as everyone else did, plus it's simply much easier than attempting to make any kind of sense of the time-traveling and parallel universes. It will also make life a lot easier as more MCU X-Men movies are released. Trust us.

• X-Men
• X2: X-Men United
• X-Men: The Last Stand
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• X-Men: First Class
• The Wolverine
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Deadpool
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• Logan
• Deadpool 2
• X-Men: Dark Phoenix
• New Mutants
• Deadpool & Wolverine

Side note: Days of Future Past: The Rogue Cut takes place in a future that is erased by the time the credits roll, so don't beat yourself up if you'd prefer to watch the theatrical cut or don't want to give up precious hours to watch them both.

And, don't forget, nearly all the X-Men movies are on Disney Plus, so be sure to catch them there. You'll also find all the Marvel movies on the platform too, making it the best streaming service for any mutant marathon.

How to watch the X-Men movies in order: chronological order(s)

Things are about to get a little complicated. Now, there are a few ways this can be done. First up, we have The Easy Way, which puts all the X-Men movies into a strict order of when they are set – so we go from the '60s to the far future. This, unfortunately, leads to some issues as Dark Phoenix does not lead particularly nicely into the first X-Men, and then you also have the fact the Dark Phoenix catastrophe happens again with Jean Grey in The Last Stand... This one's a very literal chronological order without taking in varying timelines.

Instead, you're perhaps better off taking into account the multiple timelines that are caused when Days of Future Past erases the future we knew in the original trilogy. This one starts with X-Men: First Class, which technically applies to both timelines, and goes right up until the far future and the catastrophe that prompts Wolverine to travel back to 1973 and stop the Sentinels. It will perhaps make more sense if we show you the order – but, in short, there are two timelines that don't line up...!

The X-Men movies in chronological order: The easy way

Best for: No one, really... This one's just a literal timeline of events without taking into account multiple timelines. It also doesn't align with the MCU when you read our guide on how to watch all the Marvel movies in order, and it will likely just keep on getting more convoluted once we see potential X-Men appearances in the upcoming Avengers movies (Doomsday and Secret Wars) as well as a rumored X-Men reboot. So it's best to skip this version, in our opinion.

• X-Men: First Class
• X-Men Days of Future Past
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• Dark Phoenix
• New Mutants
• X-Men
• X2: X-Men United
• X-Men: The Last Stand
• The Wolverine
• Deadpool
• Deadpool 2
• Logan
• Deadpool & Wolverine

It could be argued that Days of Future Past should be last here, in its setting of 2023, but a whole lot of it takes place in 1973, so switch that about as you like according to taste.

And Deadpool 2 also references Wolverine's death in Logan, the latter of which is set in 2029, so let's assume Deadpool marches to the beat of his own drum. I mean, Deadpool & Wolverine is also filled with timeline jumping and multiverse hopping, so the Merc with a Mouth's position in this cinematic universe is a bit of a tricky one, to say the least.

The X-Men movies in chronological order: The two X-Men timelines

The Prime timeline

• X-Men: First Class
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• X-Men
• X2: X-Men United
• X-Men: The Last Stand
• The Wolverine
• X-Men: Days of Future Past

Second timeline

• X-Men: First Class
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (past events)
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• X-Men: Dark Phoenix
• New Mutants
• Deadpool
• Deadpool 2
• Logan
• Deadpool & Wolverine

There are a lot of issues with the X-Men timelines, so many that they probably warrant a whole article of their own. Yet, by taking the series as two timelines, which almost works in release order, you can just about grasp and understand the series.

We would suggest simply ignoring any inconsistencies. The X-Men series, after all, came way before the MCU, which established how movies should relate to one another. It’s therefore no use trying to apply real-world logic to a world of mutants and mad scientists (we’re looking at you, Bolivar Trask), but that’s what’s so special about the X-Men: they’re a microcosm for real-world prejudice in a fantasy world full of superheroes – and we love them for it.

For more, check out our guide on the best Marvel movies of all time and the best Wolverine stories to read right now. We also have a page breaking down the likelihood of a Deadpool 4 if you are curious to see what possible future Wolverine may have in the MCU.