How To Watch The X-Men Movies In Timeline Order
The X-Men timeline is messy, thanks in big part to the X-Men series’ penchant for time travel. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading the comics, watching the cartoons, or sitting down for a movie marathon–some mutant is going to muck things up with time travel. And so as we break down the timelines, some of these movies are going to appear more than once, as they matter to more than one timeline, while others only matter to a single one. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, meanwhile, takes place both before and during these timelines. And then there’s the whole Deadpool problem. This character exists both inside and out of the X-Men timelines.
Even then, there are plot holes. We’re often not that worried about some minor inconsistencies here and there, but there are weird things all over. Emma Frost is an adult in 1962 in X-Men: First Class, but then in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a character named Emma, who can turn her skin into ice/diamond, is there in 1979 as a teenager. Silver Samurai chops off Wolverine’s adamantium claws at the end of The Wolverine, but Days of Future Past restores them without ever acknowledging the change. Wolverine is pulled from a river by known anti-mutant leader William Stryker in Days of Future Past, and the yellow flash in his eyes tells us that it’s really a shape-shifted Mystique. In X-Men: Apocalypse, however, he’s being held captive by the real William Stryker.
Our real recommendation is to just enjoy the ride and watch the movies in the order they were released. The writers behind these movies were working within the constraints of casting, budgets, studio executive choices, and the growing shadow of the MCU. They had to recast actors in ways that don’t seem to make any sense–Bill Duke and Peter Dinklage both play Bolivar Trask, and the two could hardly be more different for any number of reasons. Trying to make them make sense just doesn’t make sense.
Logan and The New Mutants, meanwhile, are in their own timelines–despite Logan prominently featuring two actors reprising their beloved roles. You could consider Logan a coda to multiple timelines.
With that said, here are a few additional timelines you could follow if the above release chronological order doesn’t quite work for you:
Original X-Men Timeline
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- X-Men: First Class (2011)
- X-Men (2000)
- X2: X-Men United (2003)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- The Wolverine (2013)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- Logan (2017)
X-Men First Class Timeline
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- X-Men: First Class (2011)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
Deadpool Timeline
- Deadpool (2016)
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Wolverine Timeline
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- X-Men: First Class (2011)
- X2: X-Men United (2003)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- The Wolverine (2013)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
- Logan (2017)
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Content Disclaimer and Copyright Notice
Content Disclaimer
The content provided on this website is sourced from various RSS feeds and other publicly available sources. We strive to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information, and we always provide source links to the original content. However, we are not responsible for the content’s accuracy or any changes made to the original sources after the information is aggregated on our site.
Fair Use and Copyright Notice
This website may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
