Guardians of the Galaxy

The Guardians of the Galaxy are the MCU's most unexpected emotional achievement. In 2014, the premise — a talking raccoon, a sentient tree, and a gang of interstellar misfits held together by 1970s pop music — looked like a significant creative risk. The result was the franchise's warmest ensemble: a group of people who had all lost everything and were collectively pretending they hadn't, using sarcasm and conflict as substitutes for the connection they'd never had. James Gunn's direction understood that found family is most moving when it's built by people who don't believe they deserve one.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is among the MCU's finest films and one of the most emotionally demanding. It resolves Rocket's backstory — revealed in full as a genuinely harrowing account of scientific cruelty — and gives the ensemble a proper goodbye. The film's final act reshuffles the team and sends each character where they belong rather than where the franchise needs them. Vol. 3 works best after all three Guardians films, the Holiday Special, and their appearances in Infinity War and Endgame — the payoff is calibrated to a decade of accumulated attachment.