If superheroes saving the world from VFX-heavy bad guys has you feeling numb, you're not the only one. While superhero movies are easily the most popular movie genre of the 21st century, constant domination has made more than a few people feeling fatigued. But might there be a few transgressive superhero movies that can entertain even the most hardcore cynics? Turns out, yes, there are quite a few.
Superhero movies have been around since the beginning of cinema, with scholars naming Mandrake the Magician from 1939 and The Shadow from 1940 as being the first true superhero movies. Eventually the biggest comic book superheroes like Captain Marvel, Superman, and Batman all enjoyed prominence as film serial icons. But the dominant form of superhero movies we recognize now arguably began with the rollout of Blade in 1998, followed by X-Men in 2000.
When Sam Raimi's Spider-Man broke box office records in 2002, nothing was the same. 10 years later, Marvel released The Avengers, a movie that paid off its risky gamble of interconnected storytelling that audiences, turned out, totally had the patience to follow all the way. With decades of endless superhero movies, surely many are feeling just a little tired.
But if you're truly an anti-superhero movie person, or looking for something fresh in a stale genre, seek out these 35 movies to change your mind. 35. Dredd (2012) Before Karl Urban went hunting for Supes in The Boys, he wore the helmet and uniform of Judge Dredd in the woefully u.