The Marvel Cinematic Universe boasts some of the greatest actors working in modern Hollywood. For many of them, however, their work outside the confines of the MCU are just as superheroic.
Since 2008, the Marvel Studios machine has made careers and revived others while some seem to disappear in the roles entirely. When Robert Downey Jr. was cast to lead Iron Man in 2008, it was deemed by the press a risky decision given RDJ's very public stints in rehab and one-year prison sentence. But after Iron Man took off as a multi-million dollar blockbuster, gone was RDJ's radioactive aura. He was a movie star again, and it was only the beginning of Marvel's reputation to turn Hollywood's overlooked scraps into genuine heroes.
The vast and expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise has recruited countless actors into its ranks. But the MCU isn't all-encompassing, and thus many Marvel stars have done impressive work outside the MCU. Here are 35 of the greatest movies with Marvel actors that aren't Marvel movies.
35. Swingers (1996) with Jon Favreau
Before his work on The Mandalorian, before he was Happy in the MCU, before even Elf, Jon Favreau wrote and starred in Swingers, still one of the greatest and freshest portrayals of modern dating. Favreau stars as Mike, an aspiring comedian in Los Angeles still picking up the pieces of his broken heart after his girlfriend of six years dumped him. After a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas goes south, his best friend (Vince Vaughn) commits to getting Favreau back in the dating pool. Though the movie was directed by Doug Liman, Swingers possesses a lot of Favreau's unique voice and perspective, which makes it unsurprising he's found success in the big budget franchise realm.
34. The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (2019) with Don Lee
To mainstream moviegoers in the English-speaking world, Don Lee was virtually unknown when he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Eternals; standing on stage at San Diego Comic-Con, his biggest movie with international reach was the buzzy zombie flick Train to Busan in 2016. But the armwrestling champion-turned-actor has a high profile in his native South Korea, and among his greatest movies to date is the slick-as-oil The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil. Don Lee plays a feared gang boss whose reputation is damaged after he's attacked by a stranger. Upon teaming up with a police detective, the two find that the man they're looking for is a notorious serial killer. The movie sees Don Lee flex his muscles as a formidable leading man as one of the coolest movie stars in the modern era.
33. Mississippi Grind (2015) with Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds
With Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds is officially a Marvel Cinematic Universe icon. But a year before Reynolds wore the red spandex of Deadpool, he was in the 2015 comedy-drama Mississippi Grind, co-starring with another soon-to-be Marvel star Ben Mendelsohn, who plays Talos in Captain Marvel and Secret Invasion. The movie sees the two men play gamblers who hit the road to enter a high-stakes poker game in New Orleans. (Imagine The Color of Money with poker, basically.) The movie's MCU connections go further, being the movie that filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck did prior to directing Captain Marvel.
32. Unbreakable (2000) with Samuel L. Jackson
Before he was Nick Fury, Samuel L. Jackson was Mr. Glass. In M. Night Shyamalan's acclaimed cerebral thriller Unbreakable, Bruce Willis plays a family man who discovers he might have incredible superpowers. Jackson co-stars in the movie as Elijah Price, aka "Mr. Glass," an enigmatic art collector and comic book fanatic who is obsessed with Willis' latent gifts. Released the same year X-Men blew up at the box office, Shyamalan's movie feels like it foresaw the next few decades of mainstream cinema and came early to offer something totally different.
31. Challengers (2024) with Zendaya
In the MCU, Zendaya is Spider-Man's girlfriend. But in Luca Guadagnino's Challengers, she's the villain. Centered around a steamy love triangle of highly competitive tennis pros, Challengers chronicles the broken friendship of Patrick (Josh O'Connor) and Art (Mike Faist). Starting from their tight-knit bond in college to their estrangement in adulthood, the men compete in a low-stakes regional tennis match. Victory on the court isn't what's on the line, however, but their own worth in front of the calculating and ambitious Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya), herself a once-promising tennis star until a bad injury stalled her career.
30. Much Ado About Nothing (2012) with Clark Gregg
In 2011, while on vacation from post-production of what would become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time – 2012's The Avengers – writer/director Joss Whedon indulged his Shakespearean fandom with his micro-budget movie Much Ado About Nothing. Essentially a home video version of The Bard's romantic comedy, the black and white picture stars many of Whedon's own friends from in and around Hollywood and is filmed inside his actual California home. Among the movie's stars is Clark Gregg, whose supporting role as Agent Coulson in The Avengers gives the team their name. After The Avengers, Gregg spent several years starring in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
29. Wind River (2017) with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen
Avengers co-stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen team up in Wind River, a striking neo-noir Western from Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan. Prompted by Sheridan's outrage at widespread violence against American Indigenous women, the movie follows a wildlife officer (Renner) and an FBI agent (Olsen) who track down the culprit behind the rape and murder of an 18-year-old American Indian woman on a Wyoming reservation. Amid their investigation, they find their own lives are in jeopardy. A snow-covered thriller, Wind River is not one to be missed.
28. Rush (2013) with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl
Ever wanted to see Thor and Baron Zemo race on the fast lane? Then check out Ron Howard's blistering sports drama Rush. Released in 2013, the movie dramatizes the real-life rivalry between Formula One racers James Hunt and Niki Lauda circa 1976. Hemsworth stars as the brash and showy James Hunt, from Britain, who challenges the methodical, focused veteran from Austria, Lauda (Brühl) to claim the top spot of their game. Rush reveals how their machismo rivalry takes on dangerous degrees of severity before ultimately ending in mutual respect.
27. Parachute (2024) with Dave Bautista
Following his role as Drax in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, retired pro wrestler turned actor Dave Bautista has won acclaim for his commitment to his craft and preference to work with auteurs over cheap paydays. While Bautista has an impressive oeuvre – including his show-stealing bit role in Blade Runner 2049 – his most interesting and most overlooked film is the 2024 indie drama Parachute. Directed by Brittany Snow (whom Bautista co-starred in the indie thriller Bushwick in 2017), the movie centers around a woman with an eating disorder. Bautista has a small but notable role as the main protagonist's boss who runs a novelty murder mystery dinner theater.
26. Widows (2018) with Elizabeth Debicki, Carrie Coon, Daniel Kaluuya, and Brian Tyree Henry
Widows, Steve McQueen's muscular remake of a classic British TV show, sports an array of different Marvel actors, but the movie is good enough to warrant its own attention. The movie centers around a group of Chicago women who work to steal millions from a local politician in order to pay their late husbands' debt to a crime boss. Elizabeth Debicki, who stars in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, leads the movie with Brian Tyree Henry (Eternals), Daniel Kaluuya (Black Panther), and Carrie Coon (the voice of Thanos minion Proxima Midnight).
25. Room (2015) with Brie Larson
Room turned Brie Larson from an up-and-coming actress to legit Oscar winner. In Room, Larson stars as a young woman with a son who finally breaks free after eight years of forced captivity. (Jacob Tremblay co-stars as her son.) Most of the movie deals with the fallout of their new freedom, including the struggle to acclimate to a much bigger world and to reconcile with old wounds. Larson shows why she deserved her Oscar through her immense range as a woman haunted by her traumas but resolute to start a new life; all the while, her surrounding family learns to love her innocent son who carries the DNA of the man who ruined all their lives.
24. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) with Benedict Cumberbatch
From the mind of legendary spy author John le Carré comes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, le Carré's 1974 novel turned 2011 movie. The story centers around the hunt for a Soviet double agent working in British secret service; Gary Oldman takes center stage as the movie's main character, but Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch has a supporting role as Peter Guillam (a recurring character in le Carré's novels) who is recruited by Oldman into the investigation. While Cumberbatch has led many of his own movies, still among his best is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a labyrinthine spy movie that's more complex than any of the Sorcerer Supreme's magic spells.
23. The Before Trilogy (1995-2013) with Ethan Hawke
Before he was the villain of Moon Knight (get it?), Ethan Hawke was a wandering romantic in Richard Linklater's revered Before Trilogy. Spanning three movies across three decades – Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013) – Hawke plays an American traveler who falls for a beautiful French student (Julie Delpy) while on a train to Vienna. The first movie follows the two on a sweeping night of spontaneous romance before vowing to meet one year later. The sequel Before Sunset stages their reunion in Paris after nearly a decade, and years after their first promised reunion. The final movie Before Midnight sees how their lives have ended up together. Among the most romantic movies ever made, Hawke shines as a handsome lead, showing range beyond his cult leader antagonist in the Marvel series.
22. Annihilation (2018) with Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Benedict Wong, and Oscar Isaac
In 2018, Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation (the first in his Southern Reach book series) hit the screen with Thor star Natalie Portman along with a slew of other Marvel veterans. Portman plays one of several female scientists who enter a dangerous quarantined zone known as "The Shimmer," a sprawling forest area brimming with mutant alien fauna. Also from the MCU are Tessa Thompson (Portman's co-star in Thor: Love and Thunder), Benedict Wong (from the Doctor Strange and Avengers movies), and Oscar Isaac, who starred in the Marvel series Moon Knight in 2022.
21. Stardust (2007) with Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Ben Barnes
The cult romantic fantasy Stardust, based on the Neil Gaiman novel, happens to feature quite a few Marvel actors before they were ever in the MCU. Set in 19th century England, the movie follows young Tristan (Daredevil's Charlie Cox) as he seeks a fallen star to impress his crush only to find that the star in question is herself a beautiful young woman, Yvaine (Claire Danes). Recurring Ant-Man star Michelle Pfeiffer plays the lead villain Lamia, part of a trio of witch sisters, while The Punisher's Ben Barnes has a minor role as the younger version of Tristan's father. A cool bonus: From the DCEU, Man of Steel's Henry Cavill also appears as Tristan's romantic rival, the studly Humphrey.
20. Birdman (2014) with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton
In the immediate aftermath of The Avengers, the impact of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was hard to ignore. Feeling that fatigue quite early, Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu teamed up with Michael Keaton – still remembered for his Batman movies – to deliver Birdman, an experimental dark comedy that follows the emotional breakdown of a has-been star of a fictional superhero film series as he attempts a career comeback on Broadway. While the movie is remembered for its novel form as one long continuous take, Birdman muses over the might of commercial intellectual property over art with perspective. The movie also stars Edward Norton, who played the Hulk (in 2008's The Incredible Hulk) before being recast, while Keaton himself later starred in Spider-Man: Homecoming as another winged character, Vulture.
19. Lost in Translation (2003) with Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray
After a career of mostly youth-oriented fare, Scarlett Johansson stepped into a new level of stardom in Sofia Coppola's acclaimed drama Lost in Translation. The actress known for playing the Avengers heroine Black Widow plays a young wife to a music photographer who feels neglected during a stay in Japan. She soon connects with a past-his-prime movie star, played by Bill Murray, and the two enjoy each other's company over whiskey dinners and late-night karaoke parties. Murray himself eventually joined the Marvel Universe, playing a minor role in the 2023 movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
18. Seven (1995) with Gwyneth Paltrow
David Fincher's unforgettable dark psychological thriller Seven, about a serial killer whose murders are modeled after the Biblical Seven Deadly Sins, is mostly shouldered by its stars Morgan Freeman (as a weary, seasoned police detective), Brad Pitt (as his rookie partner), and Kevin Spacey (as the elusive serial killer who outwits them both). But along for the ill-fated journey is Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy, the wife of Pitt's character who represents innocence that is later ravaged. Without giving too much away, the movie's iconic ending is not for the faint of heart. Try not to lose your head over it.
17. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) with Chris Hemsworth
Of all the Chrises in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor's Chris Hemsworth might have one of the most interesting bodies of work outside the Avengers. Movies like Blackhat (2015), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), and Spiderhead (2022) show Hemsworth willing to color outside his perceived box, while his commercial-oriented fare just seem like smart career moves. In 2024, Hemsworth showed his mettle as an actor willing to really go there in George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the unstoppable prequel to his own Mad Max: Fury Road. Living up to the legacy of Fury Road, Furiosa chronicles the origins of its title heroine (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) while Hemsworth hams it up as a warlord with Roman emperor panache who has the appropriate name of "Dementus."
16. The American President (1995) with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening
Predating The West Wing is Aaron Sorkin's political romance The American President, directed by Rob Reiner and written by Sorkin. Michael Douglas, who played the first Ant-Man in the MCU's vast canon, steps up as President Andrew Shepherd, a U.S. President and widower who falls in love with an environmental lobbyist played by Annete Bening, who is also in the MCU via the 2019 Marvel movie Captain Marvel (as the Supreme Intelligence). The American President was critically acclaimed when it opened in 1995, earning several Golden Globe nominations including Best Picture.
15. Natural Born Killers (1994) with Robert Downey Jr. and Tommy Lee Jones
While Oliver Stone's media satire/crime movie Natural Born Killers drew polarizing reviews in 1994, it has enjoyed reappraisal as a movie so prescient in the media's inordinate power to turn dangerous figures into public personas. The movie stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as a sort of 1990s Bonnie and Clyde – runaway outlaws and killers who roam America while becoming celebrities thanks to media sensationalism. Iron Man's Robert Downey Jr. plays a major role in the movie as Wayne Gale, a tabloid TV host whose coverage of Harrelson and Lewis' criminal anti-heroes ruin the American psyche. RDJ has done countless great movies in his career, from Chaplin to Zodiac to Tropic Thunder to Oppenheimer, but his performance as a slimy media personality makes Natural Born Killers deserving of outstanding mention.
14. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) with Oscar Isaac
Before he suited up as the troubled superhero Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac picked up his guitar and strummed through the hardships of life in the Coen Brothers' modern classic Inside Llewyn Davis. Set around the last gasp of the folk revival in 1960s New York City, Isaac plays aspiring folk singer Llewyn Davis who travels to Chicago and back, hoping to find the success and peace that eludes him. Inside Llewyn Davis turned Oscar Isaac into an overnight movie star, catapulting his profile for good. Though he had an unpopular performance as the villain Apocalypse in the 2016 movie X-Men: Apocalypse, Isaac found real footing in the MCU proper in his starring role in the Disney+ series Moon Knight.
13. Prisoners (2013) with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal
Hugh Jackman: Wolverine. Jake Gyllenhaal: Mysterio. These characters may never meet in the MCU. But in Denis Villeneuve's searing 2013 thriller Prisoners, Gyllenhaal and Jackman are a lit fuse and a powder keg waiting to explode. This early 2010s crime drama stars Jackman as a father whose daughter (and her friend) go missing on Thanksgiving Day. Gyllenhaal co-stars as a haunted police detective who works to track down the girls and find the kidnapper, while making sure Jackman's aggrieved and impatient father doesn't jeopardize the investigation. Prisoners is utterly absorbing, being a far cry from any of the Marvel movies both men have appeared.
12. Collateral (2004) with Jamie Foxx and Mark Ruffalo
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Jamie Foxx jumped dimensions to reprise his Electro (from 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2). But back in 2004, Foxx was just a cab driver stuck with one bad customer in Michael Mann's exceptional L.A. thriller Collateral. The movie sees Foxx forced to drive around a hitman (Tom Cruise, sporting a blonde dye job) who conducts a series of lucrative murders around Los Angeles in one night. Hot on their tail is an LAPD detective, played by Avengers star Mark Ruffalo. Foxx's return to the MCU is in question, but at least in this one movie, Electro evades the Hulk.
11. No Country for Old Men (2007) with Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones
In Avengers: Infinity War, Josh Brolin held the power of the Infinity Stones. In the Coen Brothers' new millennium classic No Country for Old Men, he's just a guy with a briefcase full of money. In this celebrated adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel, Brolin plays a pronghorn hunter who stumbles upon the site of a drug deal gone wrong and $2 million in cash. While stashing the money, he attracts the attention of a ruthless killer (Javier Bardem). No Country for Old Men is one of the most acclaimed movies of all time, a Best Picture recipient whose stature is still understood today.
10. I Kill Giants (2017) with Zoe Saldana
A moving piece of magical realism, I Kill Giants follows Barbara (Madison Wolfe), a bullied young teenager preparing for the imminent death of her mother. In Barbara's imagination, fantastical giants roam and are fast approaching her sleepy harbor town. Guardians of the Galaxy's Zoe Saldaña plays a school psychologist who tries to help Barbara cope with her inevitable sadness, and to discern reality from fiction without shutting off the light that makes Barbara special. After its 2017 premiere in Toronto, I Kill Giants went overlooked when it was released in March 2018, being dwarfed by Saldaña's other big movie – Avengers: Infinity War – that opened just a few weeks later.
9. Creed (2015) with Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson
Nearly a decade after Sylvester Stallone officially hung up his gloves as Rocky, Michael B. Jordan stepped into the ring for the sequel franchise Creed. Jordan stars as the forgotten son of famed boxer Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers in the Rocky series) who bursts onto the scene under the tutelage of Rocky Balboa (Stallone). Helmed by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, Creed was no featherweight sequel, but bonafide championship material thanks to both Jordan's handsome charisma and Coogler's exceptional direction. Tessa Thompson, from the Thor movies, co-stars as Creed's neighbor and love interest.
8. Spotlight (2015) with Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Rachel McAdams
In 2002, the Boston Globe and its specialized "Spotlight" team reported on the Catholic Church's ghastly decades-long cover-up of systemic child abuse. The exhaustive efforts by the Globe's journalists – including suing the Church in a Catholic town – were dramatized in Todd McCarthy's sober and infuriating Oscar-winning film Spotlight. Mark Ruffalo stars as real-life reporter Michael Rezendes, who spearheads the work alongside Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams, from the Doctor Strange films) and Walter Robbinson (Michael Keaton, from Spider-Man: Homecoming). In this movie, sleepless reporters show as much strength, relentlessness, and conviction as costumed heroes – everyday people who see evil and work to end their reigns of terror.
7. May December (2023) with Natalie Portman
Todd Haynes' troubling and harrowing drama May December stars Natalie Portman as a movie actress who meets the real-life figure she's set to portray: Gracie (Julianne Moore), who gained notoriety in the 1990s for being a 36-year-old grooming a 13-year-old boy. With Gracie's story set to become a movie, Portman's character visits Gracie's family, including her younger husband – the former 13-year-old (played by Charles Melton) – and their two high school-aged children. May December has an utterly fantastic Portman, who shows more raw power than her Thor-ified Jane Foster from Thor: Love and Thunder.
6. Crimson Peak (2015) with Tom Hiddleston
Guillermo del Toro's sense of romance and horror swirl in his poorly marketed gothic picture Crimson Peak, released to rave reviews and a bad box office in 2015. The movie stars an aspiring author (Mia Wasikowska) who moves into a crumbling English mansion with her husband, played by Tom Hiddlestoon, and his sister/her sister-in-law, played by Jessica Chastain. While Hiddleston has done so much more than play Loki in the Marvel franchise, 2015's Crimson Peak is still among his greatest if also most misunderstood movies of his career.
5. Da 5 Bloods (2020) with Chadwick Boseman and Jonathan Majors
The last movie starring Chadwick Boseman to be released during his painfully short life and career is Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods. A stunning war drama about legacy, capital, and reparations, the movie follows a group of Black Vietnam War veterans who return to Saigon in search of buried gold they left behind. Boseman plays a pivotal role in the movie as Norman, their deceased squad leader who appears in their collective memories. Boseman is thunderous in Lee's film, being an alluring figure of masculine energy. Jonathan Majors, who was briefly the Marvel villain Kang the Conqueror, also has a major role as David, the son of one of the veterans.
4. Under the Skin (2013) with Scarlett Johansson
A year after Scarlett Johansson co-starred in The Avengers, she was anything but superheroic in Jonathan Glazer's dark sci-fi Under the Skin. Based on Michel Faber's novel, Under the Skin tells of a strange alien (Johansson) who preys on lonely men in Scotland. (One of her targets: Adam Pearson, who also appeared with Marvel regular Sebastian Stan in the 2024 movie A Different Man.) Hailed by critics for its themes exploring sexism and identity, Scarlett Johansson is truly out of this world in her performance as an alien who barely knows what it's like to be her victim.
3. In the Mood for Love (2000) with Tony Leung
Tony Leung was an established movie star in Hong Kong when he made his Hollywood debut in Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (as the villainous but handsome father of Shang-Chi, Wenwu). One of his biggest movies of world renown is Wong Kar-wai's deeply romantic drama In the Mood for Love, where Leung plays a married salaryman who learns that his wife is engaged in an affair with his boss. Maggie Cheung co-stars as said boss' own spouse, and together, Leung and Cheung work to keep their romantic feelings for each other at bay. While many of Wong Kar-wai's movies drip with sweeping emotions lit under neon street lights, In the Mood for Love deserves special recognition. Its sense of yearning and passion is almost too much to bear.
2. Pulp Fiction (1994) with Samuel L. Jackson and Tim Roth
A movie that needs no introduction, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction transformed Samuel L. Jackson from working actor to bonafide movie star, in his role as Bible-quoting hitman Jules. Jackson is just one piece of the quilt that Tarantino weaves in his landmark sophomore movie, an interconnected narrative of different characters and fates who dwell in the underbelly of Los Angeles crime. Jackson's machine gun dialogue would be the most quotable ever in movie history, if actually saying them out loud didn't draw nasty looks from everyone at the diner. Also in the movie: Tim Roth, as the diner robber before his Marvel role as the Abomination.
1. Snowpiercer (2013) with Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Chris Evans is the ultimate hero and role model as Captain America. But in Bong Joon-ho's awe-inspiring multilingual movie, Snowpiercer (based on Jacques Lob's graphic novel series), he is a revolutionary haunted by his own inhumanity. In the grim, frosty dystopia of Snowpiercer, a massive train roams Earth containing the remnants of humanity. The poor are relegated to the back while the rich enjoy the clean luxuries of the front. Evans takes charge in Snowpiercer as Curtis, who has quietly planted the seeds for a proletariat uprising to make it to the front of the train. You can poke all the holes in its logic and worldbuilding all you want, it doesn't stop Bong Joon-ho's movie from hitting harder than a front charge of Cap's shield.
