15 Marvel Movies And Shows You Need To Watch Before Avengers: Doomsday

"Essential Viewing" For Avengers: Doomsday Includes More Than 41 Hours Of Shows And Movies Published Aug 17, 2026, 5:40 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Avengers: Doomsday is almost upon us. With only three months to go, it’s time to go back and watch other Marvel movies and shows to refresh your memories or to fill in gaps with projects you might have missed. You don’t have to watch everything, though. Disney has helpfully put together a list of essential viewing detailing everything you need to watch before Doomsday. More Than 41 Hours Of Essential Viewing That’s the good news. The bad news is even though it isn’t everything the MCU has to offer, it’s still a significant enough chunk that you’ll need to set aside almost two solid days to watch it all. Not all at once, unless you want to, I guess, but I can’t officially recommend you do that. I might, though, now that the idea is in my head. There are 14 movies and one TV show on the official essential viewing list for Doomsday, with a combined runtime totalling 2,475 minutes, or 41 hours and 15 minutes. Marvel and Disney want you to start your rewatch journey way back in the year 2000, too. Some of Fox’s X-Men will return in Doomsday, and it’s time for you to reacquaint yourselves with their introductions to the big screen via the original X-Men movie starring Ian McKellen as Magneto and Patrick Stewart as Professor X. Start In The Year 2000 Fox/Disney Don’t worry, the list doesn’t include every single X-Men movie. No one, not even Disney, is going to make you go back and watch The Wolverine or The New Mutants. Just X-Men and its sequel, X2. I’d highly recommend rewatching First Class, too. You don’t need to; it’s just really good. Once you’ve watched the first two X-Men movies, you can jump forward in time to the MCU proper. No need to watch any of the Iron Man movies; just Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers from that first phase. After that, you can skip forward to Infinity War and Endgame, and from that point on, everything else you need to watch is part of the ongoing Multiverse Saga. Enter The Multiverse It’s here that you’ll need to watch Loki, the only TV show on the list. Loki’s runtime is naturally quite a bit longer than any of the movies on the list, with almost 25% of the total time spent watching these 15 projects taking place keeping track of The God of Mischief’s exploits in the TVA. The list doesn’t specify whether to watch the two seasons back to back. If you want to keep things chronological, you’ll want to watch season one, then Shang-Chi, No Way Home, and Wakanda Forever before coming back for season two. Four of the final five movies that are considered essential viewing before Doomsday are the four most recent movies released before Brand New Day - Captain America: Brave New World, Deadpool and Wolverine, Thunderbolts, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Tucked in between them is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. An interesting place to put it. Maybe the reason for its out-of-chronological-order placement will become clearer when watching these 15 projects in order. Brand New Day is almost certainly considered essential viewing, too. It just isn’t available to stream at home yet. Those are the 14 movies and one TV show you need to watch to be prepared for the events of Avengers: Doomsday. Best get to it. Three months might seem like a long time, but fitting almost 42 hours of TV time into your busy schedule might be harder than you think. The full essential viewing list and the order in which you should watch everything can be found below. Essential Viewing Before Doomsday X-Men X2 Captain America: The First Avenger The Avengers Avengers: Infinity War Avengers: Endgame Loki Season 1 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Spider-Man: No Way Home Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Loki Season 2 Captain America: Brave New World Deadpool & Wolverine Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Thunderbolts Fantastic Four: First Steps