9 Superhero Movies That Defined the Last 10 Years

There's no secret that superhero films have absolutely taken over Hollywood. They've not only been extremely popular, but they've also been very impactful. There are plenty of superhero flicks that have gone on to define the decades they premiered, which makes them incredibly important.

Sometimes, a superhero movie even redefines a whole corner of the industry, like how Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse completely shifted the animated landscape in 2018 (more on that later). Superhero movies have had so much influence that it's hard to deny that they've helped define the last 10 years of cinema as a whole. Here are 10 superhero movies that have defined the last decade.

9 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' (2021)

Not only did Spider-Man: No Way Home bring major multiverse characters to another live-action superhero film — most famously the main heroes and villains of the previous live-action Spider-Man movies — but it was also a major factor in bringing audiences back to theaters post-pandemic. The fact that this third Tom Holland entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe made a whopping worldwide gross of $1,922,598,800 at the box office directly after COVID — which had people scared to go to the theaters — is a wild accomplishment.

Spider-Man: No Way Home blew everyone's minds, got great critical reviews, and, obviously, had great profitability for Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The box office return lands it currently at the eighth-highest-grossing movie of all time. The impact it had on saving the theater industry post-pandemic is huge, and it doesn't get the credit it deserves for that.

8 'The Batman' (2022)

For years — ever since 1989's Batman, really — the Batman character has been depicted in film as more of a superhero, disregarding a huge portion of his character: the detective side of him. One of the best aspects of the character in the comics is how smart an investigator he is, which has garnered him the title of World's Greatest Detective. Matt Reeves' The Batman is a movie that totally helped define recent superhero films because of how little of that part of him has been touched on in the past in cinema.

The crime-noir tone, style, and storytelling in The Batman redefined the character in film — one of the largest film characters/franchises of all time — and gave audiences a whole new side of him that showed a superhero movie doesn't just have to be a run-of-the-mill flick. People absolutely fell in love with Reeves and Robert Pattinson's iteration of the character because of how impactful it was on the industry as a whole.

7 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' (2021)

One of the most monumental superhero films of the last decade is, without a doubt, Zack Snyder's Justice League. The initial release of Justice League, which was finished by Joss Whedon (director of The Avengers) after Zack Snyder had to leave the project due to a personal tragedy, was horrific. However, Whedon delivered such a terrible movie that it started a gigantic movement that demanded Warner Bros. Entertainment bring Snyder back and let him finish his original vision.

In 2021, fans got to finally experience Zack Snyder's Justice League, a four-hour flick that redefined the landscape not just of superhero films but of the industry as a whole. Warner Bros. deciding to bring him back and give him the budget to make what he originally intended is kind of unheard of from Hollywood. Whether one likes the movie or not, it cannot be denied that this was a gigantic step for the industry.

6 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018)

On paper, Avengers: Infinity War should have been an absolutely horrible film. It should have critically bombed because, looking at it from the outside, the number of stories, characters, and sequences that it had to juggle was immense. However, directors Joe Russo and Anthony Russo managed to pull it off, making it easily the best Avengers movie out there.

A movie like Avengers: Infinity War proves that a movie can handle this many things in one project, which show that movies like Spider-Man 3, filled with "too many" characters and plots, could have been amazing. It has defined what a big crossover event film could be and how excellent they could become with the right creative team behind them. It also began to wrap up the extremely long-running Infinity Saga, which had already helped define the film landscape by that point.

5 'Deadpool' (2016)

Deadpool is quite easily one of the most important movies of the last decade. Before this film, R-rated superhero films barely crossed studios' minds, as they were considered not to be profitable, as it alienates a whole audience (kids) who can't go see it, meaning: less money. This 2016 flick, however, absolutely proved them wrong. With a budget of merely $58 million (extremely low for a cape flick), it brought in a large $782.8 million in return.This Ryan Reynolds and Tim Miller movie proved that R-rated superhero movies could be very successful and worth taking a chance on. This gave studios more comfort in producing projects of this rating, like Logan and Hellboy. Characters like Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) could finally get the gory movies that fit them best.

4 'Black Panther' (2018)

When it was released in 2018, Black Panther made a huge shift beneath the ground of the industry — not just being critically great, but making changes in how Hollywood typically produces films. Black Panther is a film that had a primarily Black cast and crew, which was (and still is) huge. It also touches on many societal and political issues that are incredibly important.

Black Panther explores themes of isolationism, Afro-futurism, and even the way societal racism affects the youth and how they look at the world growing up. This project not only had people loving it for its strong plot, characters, and action sequences, but also because of the message it sends to the world about these topics, and proves why they are so abundantly important.

3 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (2023)

After the massive success that was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which completely redefined the animation side of the film industry, no one knew how on Earth the team for the second movie was ever going to follow up on such an important and impactful movie. But, to many people's delight, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse managed to be pretty much just as memorable.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse took what made the first movie so good and expanded upon it. The animation took even larger leaps than the initial entry, it continued to represent and celebrate Afro-Latino culture, and the character work was even more astounding. Most prominently, though, is how it steps up and challenges the "canon" of not only Spider-Man stories, but the Hero's Journey as a whole. It presents the iconic Trolley Problem in an all-new light and keeps people engaged, wondering what could possibly come next. It showed just how far creatives can push through these film conventions to make something truly unique.

2 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' (2018)

As mentioned a few times already, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse changed the animation industry as a whole. The release, success, and quality of this movie changed everything and gave studios the confidence to get more stylistic with their animation, as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the most stylized animated films of all time.

This movie paved the way for several groundbreaking films and shows to come after, like Arcane, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Had this Spidey flick not come around, the animation industry as a whole could be incredibly different right now, and potentially still stuck using the Pixar style.

1 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019)

There is simply no finale to a major film franchise like Avengers: Endgame. Arguably, no final movie in a series as large as the MCU has ever accomplished what this 2019 project did. Not only did this become the highest-grossing movie ever made for a time — currently sitting at the number two spot behind Avatar — but it pushed past just being a film and became an event the entire world needed to attend. Theaters were screaming, cheering, and applauding throughout the entire runtime, and it proved exactly why the MCU is as impactful as it has been given credit for being.

There is simply no project that has affected the entire world in the way that Avengers: Endgame has. It was truly a moment in time unlike any other — one that most likely won't be passed up for quite some time. Arguably, this finale to the Infinity Saga defined superhero movies not only of the last 10 years, but superhero movies as a whole.