

Unraveling the X-Men timeline is a bit of a challenge due to the franchise’s malleability over the years – semi-reboots and prequels and spinoffs all kept the series fresh, but complicated its continuity. Indeed, the X-Men movies are not just fun, they’re complicated. That combination of human drama and high-flying spectacle made X-Men wildly popular, spawning a franchise that has thus far comprised 13 feature films diverse in tone, cast, and of course time period.
With 2000’s X-Men, the comic book series was adapted as a story about humanity first and foremost, drawing parallels to the civil rights movement and the struggle of minorities everywhere. Few franchises have been as integral to the evolution of the superhero movie genre than X-Men, which helped usher in a new era of comic book movies alongside films like Blade and Spider-Man.
