Key Takeaways

• The X-Men Cinematic Universe (XCU) concluded with 2019's Dark Phoenix, but Marvel has acquired the rights and plans to reboot the franchise within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
• Mutants are already starting to enter the MCU, with characters like Professor X and Beast appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Marvels. Wolverine and Deadpool will also make their MCU debuts in Deadpool 3, slated for release in May 2024.
• To understand how all these movies fit together, you need to watch the X-Men in chronological order (as best as you can anyway). Here's how.

It's hard to believe, but the X-Men Cinematic Universe (XCU) began two decades ago - with the release of X-Men in 2000. Although the XCU technically concluded with 2019's Dark Phoenix, the only thing that's truly ended is 20th Century Fox's involvement with producing the popular mutant franchise.

Marvel acquired the rights to X-Men, and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is rebooting it and teasing future inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We've begun seeing mutants enter the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It features Patrick Stewart, aka Professor X. The next MCU film, The Marvels, is slated to have Kelsey Grammer reprise his role as Beast from the early 2000 X-Men films, too. Wolverine and Deadpool are also both slated to make their MCU debuts in Deadpool 3, due out in May 2024.

To help you prepare for the X-Men's full immersion into the MCU, we're combing through all the X-Men films to figure out the best way to watch the existing films. It's been difficult to do, considering the X-Men timeline constantly jumps. Nevertheless, here's how all the X-Men movies fit together, by order of the events that happen.

X-Men movies in order: Chronological timeline explained

Our guide below has some spoilers, so be sure to jump to the bottom to check out the spoiler-free version of this X-Men chronological movie order. And, for those of you who'd prefer to watch all the films in order of release, we've included that at the bottom, as well.

There are spoilers in our X-Men movie order guide.

1 X-Men: First Class

X- Men: First Class is actually the fifth X-Men film released by Fox, but it’s first on our list, as it’s the origin story for some of the most important characters in the X-Men Cinematic Universe. The story follows James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Erik Lehnsherr as they become Professor X and Magneto. It's set primarily in 1962, as the two assemble a team of mutants to stop another mutant, the energy-absorbing Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who wants to trigger a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union.

2 X-Men: Days of Future Past

Days of Future Past begins in the dystopian future of 2023 - when mutants are hunted down and murdered by indestructible robots known as Sentinels. Kitty Pryde (Elliott Page) uses their powers to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to 1973 to stop the assassination of the inventor of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), by the mutant Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). We put this film at No. 2 on our list, as the events that matter most to the timeline take place in the 70s, while the events happening in 2023 are all part of a future that's avoided.

3 X-Men Origins: Wolverine