10 superhero movies with the best CGI, ranked

10 Superhero Movies With the Best CGI, Ranked

Plenty of superhero films have a huge CGI budget. Far fewer have CGI you stop noticing. We ranked ten of them using three questions:

  1. Did the Academy’s visual effects branch recognise it?
  2. Did the effect solve a genuinely hard problem?
  3. Does it still hold up today?

This is our ranking, so feel free to argue with it. The facts under each pick come from published production records. Only one film on the list actually won the Oscar. The rest were nominated.

10. Iron Man (2008)

The suit is half real. Stan Winston Studio built metal and rubber versions of the armour. The Mark I suit weighed about 90 lb (41 kg). They also built a 10 ft animatronic Iron Monger that needed five operators for one arm.

ILM created most of the digital work, with The Orphanage and The Embassy adding more. That mix is why the suit still looks heavy. The film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

9. The Batman (2022)

The Batman has over 1,500 effects shots. Wētā FX, ILM, Scanline VFX and Crafty Apes shared the work. Dan Lemmon supervised.

The production used ILM’s StageCraft screen technology to keep the golden-hour lighting consistent. The point of the CGI here is restraint. You mostly see a dark city, not a CG showcase. It was nominated for the Oscar.

8. Doctor Strange (2016)

The folding Manhattan chase is the reason this film is here. ILM made that sequence from about 200 shots. Planning began 10 months before filming started.

The whole film has about 1,450 effects shots, supervised by Stéphane Ceretti. Framestore did over 365 of them and Method Studios did around 270. The film was nominated for the Oscar.

7. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

The film has 1,311 effects shots from 12 studios. Moving Picture Company built the future Sentinels. Digital Domain built the 1973 versions. Legacy Effects made life-sized practical Sentinels too.

The famous Quicksilver kitchen scene is the best part. Rising Sun Pictures made 29 shots over roughly seven months with 70 artists. It was nominated for the Oscar.

6. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Thirteen studios worked on this film. The old Spider-Man villains came back. Doc Ock’s tentacles are now fully CG. In 2004 they were a mix of puppetry and CG. Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe were digitally de-aged.

It was nominated for the Oscar.

5. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The film has about 200 de-aging and aging shots. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner were taken back to their 2012 looks. Twelve studios worked on the film.

It was also the first Hollywood feature shot entirely with IMAX-certified digital cameras. It was nominated for the Oscar.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Rocket is the reason to watch. Framestore built him for the first film. Sean Gunn gives the on-set motion-capture performance. More than ten effects companies worked on this film, supervised by Stéphane Ceretti.

The CGI succeeds because you feel something for a CG raccoon. It was nominated for the Oscar.

3. Spider-Man 2 (2004)

This is the only film on the list that won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The winners were John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier.

Doc Ock’s tentacles were physical props built by Edge FX, about 8 ft long. The team switched to CG when the arms carried the character. The train sequence was filmed in Chicago with 16 cameras for the backgrounds. The film is over 20 years old and still holds up.

2. The Avengers (2012)

The film has more than 2,200 effects shots from 14 companies. ILM led the work and built the Helicarrier, the New York cityscape, Iron Man and the Hulk. Mark Ruffalo performed in a motion-capture suit on set. Four HD cameras recorded him, two for the body and two for the face. The Hulk’s face is based on Ruffalo’s.

The Hulk is a hard character to get right on screen. Here Ruffalo’s performance carries through the CG. It was nominated for the Oscar.

1. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Thanos carries the film. He’s a fully CG villain with the biggest emotional arc in the movie. Josh Brolin gave his voice and his motion-capture performance on set. Ten studios worked on the film, including ILM, Framestore, Weta Digital, DNEG and Digital Domain.

Thanos works because the performance reads through the CG. The face feels like Brolin’s. That is the hardest thing in visual effects, and it’s why he’s number one. The film was nominated for the Oscar.

What this tells you

Look at what the top picks have in common:

  1. A real performance sits under the CG, from Ruffalo, Brolin and Gunn.
  2. Practical work blends in wherever it can, such as Spider-Man 2’s tentacles.
  3. The effect serves a character, not just a spectacle.

If you’re working on a character or creature project and want to talk it through, see our work or contact us.

Which film would you move up or down? Let us know.

Sources and references

  1. Wikipedia: Iron Man (2008 film), The Batman (film), Doctor Strange (2016 film), X-Men: Days of Future Past, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Avengers: Endgame, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Guardians of the Galaxy (film), Spider-Man 2, The Avengers (2012 film), Avengers: Infinity War.
  2. Wikipedia: Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (nominee and winner records).