Ranking all 12 of the 'X-Men' movies

Hugh Jackman’s first solo outing as Wolverine is also his worst. A prequel to the X-Men trilogy, it follows Logan during his days fighting with his brother Victor (Sabre Tooth), Team X and first meeting with Colonel Stryker. Jackman’s performance as Wolverine can’t be faulted, but the storyline is pretty meh, proving that sometimes there can be too much backstory, and the treatment of Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson was utterly abysmal. Let’s just forget this one ever happened. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

The third film in the original trilogy, The Last Stand suffered from too many characters and convoluted storylines. It tried to mix together plot points from Dark Phoenix and the mutant cure concept of the Gifted comic runs but it didn’t do either one justice. Brett Ratner’s heavy handed direction didn’t help either and failed to show the emotional drama that the X-Men has become synonymous with. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Apocalypse lost all the goodwill of the previous two movies by over exerting itself with characters, plot and never doing either areas justice. The film sees the X-Men once again fighting to save the world from destruction, this time from the first ever mutant. There are some good performances and it offers a nice introduction to the new, younger, younger generation of X-Men, but it marks another dip in the quality of Fox’s X-Men output from Bryan Singer (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

The final movie in the X-Men saga, featuring the current creative team and cast, was pretty anticlimactic. By stripping away much of the subplots and character development of the previous films to focus on Jean Grey's transition into the title antagonist, we're left with a pretty mundane and humourless story that fizzles out by the end. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

James Mangold’s Wolverine directorial debut was a marked improvement on the first solo effort as it saw Logan head to Japan to reacquaint with a dying old friend. Upon arrival he soon becomes a target and must fight to keep himself, and his friend’s daughter alive. This film really brought the character development and emotional heft of the Wolverine comic its based on, even if did lose its way towards the end with an overload of CGI. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Deadpool’s second outing did what sequels typically do by going bigger, harder and louder. Reynolds’ antihero creates the X-Force to protect a young mutant from the time-traveling Cable and its packed to the brim with fun and gory fight scenes to rival the first. Sadly David Leitch’s film is too full of meta jokes and one-liners that you feel like you’re getting wit-lash after 20 minutes. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

The first X-Men movie is one of the most iconic and laid the groundwork for many a comic book movie after. Impeccable casting is half of the film’s success with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen playing frenemies Professor X and Magneto, and of course Jackman as Logan, though it meant some of the side characters didn’t get enough of the spotlight. Still, X-Men is a testament to the comic books and delivered enough gut-punching action to prove Lauren Shuler Donner was right to buy the film rights to the superheroes. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Time travel plots are never easy, especially when it’s five movies into a franchise, but Days of Future Past offers a satisfying, action-packed and layered story that corrects some of the mistakes of previous films. It also does some serious fan service by having the older and younger generations of the X-Men in one movie as the mutants unite by sending Wolverine back in time to stop the Sentinel program from being given the green light. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Matthew Vaughn delivered a worthy successor to the original X-Men trilogy and that’s a lot to do with the casting of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence as the younger Xavier, Eric and Raven. The ‘60s setting certainly refreshed the franchise as did the introduction of new villains including Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, but its success comes from better writing, historical resonance, an actual sense of humour with enough action to remind us these guys are powerful mutants. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Ryan Reynolds proved everyone wrong with this fast-paced and quick-witted outing as the Wade Wilson everyone who reads the comics knows and loves. A blade for hire, Wade finds love but learns he has cancer so trusts some bad guys to cure him only for him to become a tortured experiment. He soon goes on a revenge mission and the laughs come as quick as the stabs. Throwing shade at his past superhero movies and enough pop culture references to make a Buzzfeed listicle, Reynolds is in his element as the Merc with the Mouth and, as it turns out, he’s got the gory action to boot. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

This movie really set the standard for all superhero sequels to be measured against. Written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and David Hayter and inspired by the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, X2 sees the X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants team up to stop a genocidal Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox) from building his own version of Xavier's mutant-tracking computer Cerebro, in order to destroy every mutant on Earth. Great script, even better acting and an ambitious moral exploration with memorable action set pieces. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

A fine example of what makes a great superhero movie, James Mangold delivers premium storytelling which does more justice to the tone and feel of the comic book run its based on, Old Man Logan, than any other in the franchise. Jackman is in his element as a dying Logan tasked with delivering a young mutant to safety in a world where they are practically extinct. It’s brooding, brutal and bloody emotional so the perfect farewell to such an iconic character. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)