Not only is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 my favorite film of the series, but it’s also quite possibly the best entry in the entire MCU.

Ant-Man’s return is notable for the villain and not a lot more, meaning this sequel shrinks into the back of the memory rather quickly, disappearing into the multiversal content void almost as if it never existed in the first place.

Coogler aims high with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and when the director hits his target, it’s right in the absolute center of the bull’s-eye. But the misses add up.

Thor: Love and Thunder is my least favorite film in the MCU.

It doesn’t happen immediately, but when it matters most, Raimi unleashes all of the crazy, comedically vaudevillian, blood-soaked, visually audacious tricks fans expect from him, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes alive like no other MCU entry in recent memory.

The last third of Spider-Man: No Way Home is excellent. There is some wonderful closure for a few characters who never got any in their previous appearances, while this version of Peter Parker gets some agency largely disconnected from the rest of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Eternals shoots for the stars, and if the finished feature isn’t quite out of this world, it’s still close enough to getting there that my interest in seeing where these characters go next is exceedingly high.

It’s dumb. It’s loud. It barely makes a lick of sense. But unlike its predecessor, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is also a heck of a lot of fun.

Shang-Chi kicks butt, just not enough of it to fully satisfy.