Let’s be real for a second. If you’re looking for a clean, linear X men series order, you’re basically asking for a headache. Fox didn't exactly have a "Kevin Feige" figure steering the ship back in 2000. They just made movies. Some were great. Some were X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
When you look at the timeline, it’s not a line. It’s a plate of spaghetti. You’ve got time travel, soft reboots, hard reboots, and actors who seemingly don't age for thirty years while the world around them changes from the disco era to the grunge phase. It’s chaotic. But honestly? That’s kind of the charm.
The struggle most people have is deciding between the order the movies actually came out and the order the events "happened" in the fictional universe. If you go chronological, you start in the 60s, jump to the 80s, then hit the early 2000s, then go back to the 70s to erase the movies you just watched. It’s a lot.
The Release Date Order: The Only Way That Doesn't Spoil Everything
Look, I’m a purist. If you want to experience why these movies matter, you have to watch them in the order they hit theaters. This is the X men series order for people who want to see how the genre evolved. You start with Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000). It’s small-scale compared to today’s MCU stuff, but it grounded the whole concept of mutants in a way that felt like a political thriller.
Then you hit X2: X-Men United. Most fans agree this is the peak of the original trilogy. Hugh Jackman really finds his footing as Logan here. But then... X-Men: The Last Stand happened. Brett Ratner took over, and things got messy. Phoenix died, Cyclops died off-screen (still salty about that), and the cure plotline felt rushed.
After that, things got weird with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This movie is infamous for what it did to Deadpool—sewing his mouth shut was a choice. A bad one. But it gave us the first real look at the "Origin" era.
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Then came the savior: X-Men: First Class. Matthew Vaughn took us back to 1962. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender stepped into the shoes of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, and the chemistry was electric. It breathed new life into a dying franchise.
From there, we got The Wolverine (the Japan one), which is actually pretty decent if you ignore the giant silver robot at the end. Then, the big one: X-Men: Days of Future Past. This movie is the bridge. It connects the old cast with the new cast and, most importantly, it uses time travel to delete the movies fans hated (The Last Stand and Origins). It’s a genius move, really.
The rest of the release order looks like this:
- Deadpool (2016) - A total pivot into R-rated comedy.
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - A bit of a step back, honestly. Oscar Isaac is buried under purple prosthetics.
- Logan (2017) - A masterpiece. It’s a Western disguised as a superhero movie.
- Deadpool 2 (2018) - More meta-humor and Cable.
- Dark Phoenix (2019) - The "end" of the Fox era. It tried to do the Phoenix saga again and, well, it didn't quite land.
- The New Mutants (2020) - The horror-adjacent spin-off that sat on a shelf for years.
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) - The official MCU entry that breaks the fourth wall so hard the wall doesn't exist anymore.
The Chronological Order: For the Brave and the Patient
If you’re a glutton for punishment and want to see the X men series order by the year the story takes place, prepare to be confused.
You start with First Class in 1962. Magneto chasing Nazis. Xavier being a bit of a playboy. It’s great. Then you jump to Days of Future Past (the 1973 portions). Here’s where it gets tricky. Because Logan changes the past in 1973, everything that happens after 1973 in the original movies technically doesn’t happen anymore.
So, in the "Original Timeline," it goes:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (mostly the 70s/80s stuff)
- X-Men (2000)
- X2 (2003)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- The Wolverine (2013)
- Days of Future Past (the 2023 future scenes)
But in the "New Timeline" created by Wolverine's time-traveling consciousness, it looks like this:
- X-Men: First Class (1962)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (1973)
- X-Men: Apocalypse (1983)
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix (1992)
- Deadpool (2016)
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- The New Mutants (unspecified, but modern day)
- Logan (2029 - technically its own thing, but feels like the end)
Seriously, don't try to make the ages work. Emma Frost is a teenager in the 80s in Origins but a grown woman in the 60s in First Class. It's a continuity nightmare. Just vibe with it.
Why Logan and Deadpool Change Everything
You can't talk about the X men series order without acknowledging that Logan and the Deadpool movies exist in their own pockets of reality. James Mangold, who directed Logan, has basically said that his movie takes place in a slightly different future so he didn't have to worry about the baggage of the other films. It’s a "thematic" ending rather than a literal one.
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Deadpool, on the other hand, knows he's in a movie. He literally visits the X-Mansion and asks why it's so empty (because the studio couldn't afford more cameos). By the time we get to Deadpool & Wolverine, the concept of "Sacred Timelines" and the Multiverse from the MCU gets introduced. This actually helps explain away all the inconsistencies. If something doesn't make sense? It's just a different branch of the multiverse. Easy.
The "Essential" Watchlist (Saving You 20 Hours)
Maybe you don't have time to watch 13 movies. Life is short. If you want the core emotional arc of the X-Men without the fluff, here is the curated X men series order I’d recommend to a friend.
First, watch X-Men and X2. They set the stage. You understand the dynamic between Logan, Rogue, Scott, and Jean. You get why Xavier and Magneto are basically two sides of the same coin.
Skip The Last Stand. Seriously. Just read a summary if you have to.
Next, watch X-Men: First Class. It’s essential for understanding the Magneto/Xavier bromance-turned-tragedy. Then, go straight into X-Men: Days of Future Past. It’s the ultimate crossover and arguably the best film in the entire franchise.
Finally, finish with Logan. It is the perfect, somber goodbye to Hugh Jackman’s character (until he came back, but we’ll get to that). If you want some laughs, throw in the Deadpool trilogy whenever you feel like a break from the melodrama.
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Common Misconceptions About the Timeline
People often think X-Men Origins: Wolverine is necessary to understand Logan’s back story. It isn't. Everything you need to know about his memory loss and the Adamantium surgery is explained better through flashbacks in X2.
Another big one: the "New Mutants" connection. People kept waiting for them to join the main team. It never happened. The movie was caught in the middle of the Disney-Fox merger. It’s a standalone story. If you skip it, you aren't missing any lore that affects the other films.
Moving Forward: The MCU Era
Now that Disney owns the rights, the X men series order is about to get even more complicated. We saw Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. We saw Beast in the post-credits of The Marvels. And obviously, Deadpool & Wolverine brought the "Anchor Being" concept into play.
The Fox universe is effectively over, but its characters are being grandfathered into the Marvel Cinematic Universe through the Multiverse. This means you don't necessarily need to know the old movies to understand the new ones, but the emotional payoff is way higher if you've seen the 24-year journey these characters have been on.
Next Steps for Your Rewatch
If you're planning to dive back into the world of mutants, don't overthink the continuity errors. They are part of the experience.
- Start with the 2000 original. It’s the foundation.
- Prioritize the Rogue/Wolverine and Xavier/Magneto relationships. Those are the two hearts of the franchise.
- Watch Deadpool & Wolverine last. It serves as a love letter to the entire Fox era, and the jokes land much better if you've seen the "failed" movies it pokes fun at.
- Check out X-Men '97 on Disney+. While it's an animated series and not part of the live-action movie timeline, it captures the spirit of the comics better than almost any of the films. It’s a great companion piece for when you finish the movies.
The most important thing is to enjoy the ride. The X-Men have always been about being an outsider and finding a family. Whether the timeline makes sense or not, that message stays consistent across every single movie. Except maybe Origins. We don't talk about Origins.