Rotten Tomatoes’ “Best 300 Movies of All Time” list confirms which X-Men movie in Fox’s franchise is the best reviewed by critics and fans.

Rotten Tomatoes‘ list of “300 Best Movies of All Time” settles which X-Men movie is the best according to critics, Marvel fans, and the general audience. Throughout two decades, the X-Men movie franchise went through various changes and different plans that resulted in the critical and commercial failure of some releases and the success of others. Hence, Fox’s thirteen X-Men movies might be a mixed bag, with widely panned installments like Dark Phoenix and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but also with unanimous hits like X2: X-Men United and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

In May 2024, Rotten Tomatoes released an updated list of “300 Best Movies of All Time”, crowning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as RT‘s best superhero movie ever. Eleven Marvel films made the top 300, but only one DC title found a spot in the ranking: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Marvel’s Spider-Man projects and collaborations took the top spots, followed by popular MCU movies such as Avengers: Endgame and Iron Man. Meanwhile, only one of Fox’s X-Men movies made the list.

Logan Is The Fox X-Men Franchise’s Best Movie According To New RT Data

Logan Lands On Rotten Tomatoes’ #228 Spot With A 93% Tomatometer Score

James Mangold’s Logan claims the 228th spot in Rotten Tomatoes‘ “300 Best Movies of All Time” list, holding a 93% Tomatometer score and a 90% Audience Score, with 429 critic reviews and over 50,000 ratings as of May 2024. Logan lands only two spots below the MCU’s Black Panther, but above famous hits such as Shaun of the Dead, Back to the Future, Die Hard, and Gravity, as well as above the MCU movies Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, and The Avengers.

Following Rotten Tomatoes‘ “Tomatometer + Audience Score” logic, the X-Men movies that would have followed Logan in the ranking after the 300th spot would be X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: First Class, and Deadpool — precisely three of the X-Men films that are generally regarded as drastic pivot points in the franchise. X-Men: Days of Future Past passed on the torch from the original cast to the younger X-Men, X-Men: First Class soft-rebooted the X-Men universe a few years before, and Deadpool remade Ryan Reynolds’ Merc With a Mouth from scratch. See the full X-Men ranking below:

Why Logan Is The Best Fox X-Men Movie

Logan Is A Heartfelt Character Study 17 Years In The Making

Logan isn’t just a refined adaptation of Marvel’s Old Man Logan storyline. James Mangold’s 2017 action drama dives deep into Wolverine’s innermost fears and struggles by breaking down his body and his will. Instead of fighting a powerful supervillain or saving mutantkind, Wolverine strives to defend his only surviving loved ones, and yet, he’s met with loss after loss. Unlike heroes like Iron Man or Captain America, Wolverine’s long-announced fate is dying a painful and ordinary death — which he accepts only after giving himself the chance to love one last time.

Logan‘s main appeal lies within Wolverine’s inner conflict rather than in his battles, though Logan‘s R-rated action also take the movie one step above all previous Wolverine appearances with a satisfying look at what a rageful Wolverine is truly capable of. Logan‘s themes of loss and defeat also apply to Charles Xavier, who receives a harrowing legacy and an unceremonious death; as well as the X-Men, who die brutally off-screen, and X-23, whose future doesn’t seem bright even after Wolverine’s sacrifice. In short, Logan makes the bold decision to conclude Wolverine’s story as tragically as it was destined to end.