Author Archives: Bubbawheat
100 Essential Superhero Movies
After running this site for a few years where I have been trying to seek out, watch, and review every superhero and comic book movie that I can find, I decided that I wanted to make a definitive list of superhero movies that captured the essence of the range of superhero movies. Going through the decades and choosing the most influential, the biggest disasters, and simply the best superhero movies out there I hope to try and capture what I like to call the 100 Essential Superhero Movies. If you are a fan of superhero movies at all, these are the first ones that you should seek out. Not all of them are great, but when studying history it pays to not just look at the successes, but to also look at the failures. Also, as this list is being made in 2014, only includes movies made through 2013.
Superman Movies # 1 – 8
Marvel Cinematic Universe # 9 – 15
Comedies # 16 – 24
Batman Movies # 25 – 38
Early Marvel # 39 – 46
Animation #47 – 56
Original Heroes #57 – 65
Borrowed Marvel #66 – 72
Indie Comics #73 – 84
100 Essential Superhero Movies by Release Date
- The Superman Animated Shorts 1941-1943
- Superman and the Mole Men 1951
- Batman: The Movie 1966
- The Wild World of Batwoman 1966
- Mr. Freedom 1969
- Super Infra-Man 1975
- Superman: The Movie 1978
- Superman II (The Richard Donner Cut) 1980
- Flash Gordon 1980
- Swamp Thing 1982
- Return of Captain Invincible 1983
- Superman III 1983
- Supergirl 1984
- The Toxic Avenger 1984
- Howard the Duck 1986
- Robocop 1987
- The Punisher 1989
- Batman 1989
- Return of the Swamp Thing 1989
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990
- Darkman 1990
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze 1991
- The Rocketeer 1991
- Batman Returns 1992
- Batman: Mask of the Phantasm 1993
- The Meteor Man 1993
- Fantastic Four 1994
- The Shadow 1994
- The Mask 1994
- The Crow 1994
- Tank Girl 1995
- Batman Forever 1995
- Men in Black 1997
- Batman & Robin 1997
- Orgazmo 1997
- Spawn 1997
- Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1998
- Blade 1998
- The Iron Giant 1999
- Mystery Men 1999
- X-Men 2000
- Unbreakable 2000
- Blade 2 2002
- Spider-man 2002
- X2: X-Men United 2003
- Hulk 2003
- Daredevil 2003
- Catwoman 2004
- Hellboy 2004
- The Incredibles 2004
- Spider-man 2 2004
- The Punisher 2004
- Constantine 2005
- Sky High 2005
- Batman Begins 2005
- Fantastic Four 2005
- Superman Returns 2006
- TMNT 2006
- Ultimate Avengers 2006
- Hellboy: Blood + Iron 2007
- Doctor Strange 2007
- Ghost Rider 2007
- Superman: Doomsday 2007
- The Incredible Hulk 2008
- The Dark Knight 2008
- Iron Man 2008
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army 2008
- Hancock 2008
- Batman: Gotham Knight 2008
- Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog 2008
- Green Lantern: First Flight 2009
- Watchmen 2009
- Wonder Woman 2009
- Defendor 2009
- Batman: Under the Red Hood 2010
- Megamind 2010
- Super 2010
- Iron Man 2 2010
- Kick-Ass 2010
- Planet Hulk 2010
- Gantz 2010
- Green Lantern 2011
- X-Men: First Class 2011
- Captain America: The First Avenger 2011
- Thor 2011
- All Superheroes Must Die 2011
- Chronicle 2012
- The Avengers 2012
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2012
- The Dark Knight Rises 2012
- Dredd 2012
- Justice League: Doom 2012
- The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 & Part 2 2013
- Thor: The Dark World 2013
- Legends of the Knight 2013
- Iron Man 3 2013
- Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox 2013
- The Wolverine 2013
- Lego Batman: DC Heroes Unite 2013
- Man of Steel 2013
100 Essential Superhero Movies: Early Marvel
I decided that I wanted to make a list of 100 superhero movies that I thought were the essentials, the ones that everyone needs to see at one point in time if they want to be a fully fledged superhero movie afficionado, and while I am having guest bloggers this month help me fill out the list, there are many much more obvious choices that were easy to make and I’m here to share some of those with you. I’ve taken a look at the more recent Marvel Cinematic Universe already, but before they became a movie studio powerhouse partnered with Disney, they tossed around a lot of their characters to other studios with some often disastrous results.
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Filmwhys Extra #9: Blind Spots
Welcome to another episode of Filmwhys Extra, the show between my regular episodes of Filmwhys where I don’t talk about two different movies with a guest, but instead have an interview, a roundtable discussion on a film related topic, or something else entirely. This episode I discussed a major part of the concept of the entire show itself, the Filmwhys or Blind Spot, which is a movie that you’ve never seen but feel like you should have seen already. My guests are Ryan McNeil from The Matinee and Steve Honeywell from 1001Plus. It’s a fun discussion so I hope you will listen.
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100 Essential Superhero Movies – You Decide! Orgazmo
Part of finishing off this list of 100 essential superhero movies is bringing in my audience, and so when I got down to the last 20 movies, I decided that I would let you decide. And what better way than to reach out to other movie critics and reviewers to let them argue the case for a superhero movie that they are a fan of and at the bottom of the post, there is a poll where you can vote whether or not you agree if it should be included in the 100 Essential Superhero Movies list. Today my guest is The Vern from The Vern’s Video Vortex who is taking a look at one of the increasingly few superhero movies I have yet to see for myself, Orgazmo. And to check out his full review of this movie visit his site.
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TV Nights: A Super Fall Preview
It’s been a long time, if ever, that there has been this many superhero and comic book TV shows on any fall line up and I’m very excited about it. In this preview I will be looking at the shows that are airing on the major networks starting in the early fall season. There are a couple more coming out in the midseason and a couple more that have been announced for sometime next year, but I will take a look at those when there is more information. For all of the new shows I am embedding a trailer for the series, but there’s one other thing that I would like to announce, and this is the perfect place to do it. Since there are so many superhero and comic book shows coming up this next fall season, I decided that I wouldn’t be able to cover them all myself. I mean, I couldn’t even keep up with three shows this year and so I am proud to announce Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights’ new TV correspondent for this upcoming Fall season, James Dyble from JTD who I will let introduce himself before going into my own reactions to the shows coming out this fall.
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100 Essential Superhero Movies – You Decide! Flash Gordon
Part of finishing off this list of 100 essential superhero movies is bringing in my audience, and so when I got down to the last 15-20 movies, I decided that I would let you decide. And what better than to reach out to other movie critics and reviewers to let them argue the case for a superhero movie that they are a fan of and at the bottom of the post, there is a poll where you can vote whether or not you agree if it should be included in the 100 Essential Superhero Movies list. But I didn’t want them to have all the fun so today I will be defending the case for the campy sci-fi classic Flash Gordon.
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Filmwhys #29: Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Crow: Wicked Prayer
Episode 29 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest JD Duran of InSession Film asks me why I haven’t seen the original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a film that has been remade at least three times with themes of distrust and an undercurrent of the communist threat. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen the Crow: Wicked Prayer which is currently the last of the Crow movies and arguably the worst with a cast of actors pulled from the low levels of other sci-fi movies to create something much lesser than the sum of its parts.
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100 Essential Superhero Movies: The Batman Movies
I decided that I wanted to make a list of 100 superhero movies that I thought were the essentials, the ones that everyone needs to see at one point in time if they want to be a fully fledged superhero movie afficionado, and while I am having guest bloggers this month help me fill out the list, there are many much more obvious choices that were easy to make and I’m here to share some of those with you. I started these lists off with Superman and now it’s time to take a look at the other side of the DC coin and the superhero who has the most movies under his belt and that is Batman.
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X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past 2014
Many people would say that the last good X-Men movie that we got was way back in 2003 with X-2: X-Men United which also happens to be the last film of the franchise directed by Bryan Singer. There was also the franchise re-boot with First Class directed by Matthew Vaughn which also got quite a bit of critical praise, and now we have this movie. Bryan Singer has come back to direct and Matthew Vaughn contributed to the script to bring the worlds of First Class and the original trilogy back together, even though the Last Stand is treated pretty much as if it never actually happened aside from a few memories in Wolverine’s head about what happens to Jean. Not only that, but this storyline is one of the most iconic and revered within the continuity of the X-Men comic, though I only know what was pulled from it for the 90’s cartoon series. Honestly, I loved where they went with this story and thought it was handled masterfully. There are still some holes here and there, but overall it was a fantastic way to tie together the rest of the movies into a slightly more cohesive continuity. There is a lot to cover in this movie, and as usual I’m not going to tread lightly on spoilers so be forewarned.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1
It may be cliched to say this, but it does feel like just a moment ago when I was watching the pilot of this new TV show, the first TV show to take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which I suppose should more or less be called the Marvel Live Action Universe, as I’m pretty sure that the upcoming Big Hero 6 does not take place in the same universe as the other live action films and shows. The show had a rough start for many people, though I enjoyed the show straight from the pilot episode, and the ratings dropped off quite a bit a few weeks into the second half of the season which wasn’t helped by the many multi-week hiatuses. But once the uninterrupted lead up to the season finale began as well as the big shake-up tied in with Captain America, the show finally found its footing and brought back many who gave the show a break with a strong ending and solid foundation for a second season. FYI, I will be talking about the entire season so there will be some spoilers, though I will try to keep some of the big surprises not tied to the movies.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 