5. Iron Man 3

Some of you may be shocked to see Iron Man 3 so high on this list, especially after the Mandarin twist which upset so many comic book readers at the time. It was arguably a funny and clever move, but one which just didn’t sit well with fans of a pretty mediocre villain.

Put that all to one side though, and Shane Black’s take on the Armoured Avenger deserves a lot of praise for a number of other reasons too. After their previous collaboration of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, we should have known that Black and Robert Downey Jr. would deliver a smart caper of a movie, and that’s just what we got as we spent a lot of time with Tony Stark the man, not just Tony Stark, the man in an iron suit.

It was refreshing to say the least, and audiences responded to it by making Iron Man 3 the first Marvel Studios solo movie to hit $1 billion. The action was also some of the best we’ve seen to date in a superhero movie.