Best Superhero Movies of 2024

It’s no surprise that superhero movies have big budgets. They rank among the most expensive films ever made, and for good reason. These movies are usually loaded with impressive visual effects and come with long run times and all-star casts. These blockbuster spectacles have a strong track record of filling theater seats and grossing hundreds of millions of dollars. That, until the last couple of years. After years of watching sequel after sequel, franchise after franchise, audiences were finally hit with superhero fatigue. Plus, the movies themselves also seemed to dip in quality.

Taking notice of this, studios used 2024 to rein it in and cut back on their superhero output. They adopted the “less is more” approach, giving us fewer superhero films than any other year in recent memory. But 2024 still churned out plenty of superhero blockbusters. Some of them were critical successes that you may not know exist. Others were highly publicized commercial and critical bombs. Here’s every big-budget superhero movie that’s been released in 2024, ranked by Rotten Tomatoes.

7 ‘Madame Web’ (2024)

11%

Madame Web tells the origin story of Madame Webb (Johnson), who must save three future Spider-Women from being hunted down and killed by a time-traveling, evil-looking Spider-Man. It’s another uninspired superhero origin story. Another unnecessary Spider-Man adjacent film from Sony, who’s desperate to get something going with this Marvel property. Not even stars like Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney could spare this movie from tanking at the box office.

Madame Web grossed an abysmal $100 million worldwide (that’s very, very low for a superhero movie) against a production budget of $80 million. Madame Web has gone down as one of the worst movies of 2024, garnering a pathetic 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. Its audience score of 56% is a little better, though it still results in a splattered tomato.

6 ‘The Crow’ (2024)

22%

2024’s The Crow is a remake of the 1994 cult classic, starring the late Brandon Lee. Similar to the original film, Eric (now played by Bill Skarsgard) and the love of his life are murdered by a gang. Eric is then resurrected as The Crow, an anti-hero with superhuman abilities, and embarks on a vengeful crusade against those who wronged him.

The Crow bombed at the box office and received negative reviews from critics, landing at a pitiful 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite its low box office numbers, The Crow fared surprisingly better with audiences, landing a fresh 63% on the website.

5 ‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ (2024)

37%

The Hellboy franchise has had a few twists and turns over the years. First, we had Guillermo del Toro’s beloved Hellboy duology. Then the series was rebooted with 2019’s Hellboy, which was a critical and commercial disaster. Then the series was rebooted again with 2024’s Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Don’t remember hearing about it? That’s probably because this is a Belgian film that was released direct-to-VOD in the United States.

Adapted from the limited comic book series of the same name, Hellboy: The Crooked Man follows its titular hero to 1950s rural Appalachia, where he discovers a community of witches led by a local devil with a connection to Hellboy’s past. The film wasn’t a box office smash by any means, but it did better than its predecessor’s abysmal 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Well, slightly better. It earned a 37% from critics, which still pales in comparison to del Toro’s films.

4 ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ (2024)

41%

Venom: The Last Dance follows the symbiotic duo, Eddie (Tom Hardy) and Venom, in what’s slated to be the final entry in Sony’s Venom trilogy. Like all the Venom movies, it received negative reviews from critics, landing a lowly 41% on Rotten Tomatoes. But that didn’t stop audiences from turning out in droves to see Venom: The Last Dance. It’s currently the seventh highest-grossing film of 2024, grossing $468 million worldwide.

Audiences even showed it love on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an audience score of 81%. Venom: The Last Dance is one of the few successes that Sony’s had with its Spider-Man Universe, faring much better than the aforementioned Madame Web.

3 ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ (2024)

79%

Deadpool & Wolverine was one of the most highly anticipated films of 2024. And boy, did it deliver. Deadpool & Wolverine follows the talkative, wise-cracking anti-hero Deadpool across the multiverse, as he searches for the one hero who can help him save his universe: Wolverine. This blockbuster brought back Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, and, more famously, it brought Hugh Jackman back for his tenth performance as Wolverine. And it finally adorned him in the character’s iconic yellow suit and mask. In an interesting move, this film also integrated both of these 21st Century Fox characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Deadpool & Wolverine was the breath of fresh air, and the success, that Marvel desperately needed. After grossing a whopping $1.3 billion worldwide, Deadpool & Wolverine became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time and is the second-highest-grossing movie of 2024. But it wasn’t just a hit with audiences, who gave it a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Deadpool & Wolverine also did well with critics, landing a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.

2 ‘Ultraman: Rising’

85%

Never heard of Ultraman? The Ultra Series is a Japanese sci-fi franchise that mostly centers on an alien superhero named Ultraman, who often fights kaiju or other aliens. Ultraman: Rising is the 44th film in the franchise. But rather than fight a kaiju, Ultraman is instead forced to adopt a fire-breathing baby kaiju and protect it from dark plans looking to exploit her.

Ultraman: Rising premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival before being released worldwide on Netflix back in June and received positive reviews from both critics and audiences, scoring 85% and 92% on Rotten Tomatoes respectively.

1 ‘My Hero Academia: You’re Next’ (2024)

94%

It seems like animated superhero films fared a lot better than their live-action counterparts. My Hero Academia: You’re Next is an animated film based on an original story from the wildly popular manga and anime series, My Hero Academia. Here, series protagonist and high school student Izuku Midoriya faces a villain imitating the hero he most admires.

As a Japanese film, it was released in Japan in August before hitting U.S. theaters in October. My Hero Academia: You’re Next scored well with both critics and audiences, earning a 94% and a 91% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.