Hawkeye (Season 1)
"This holiday season, the best gifts come with a bow."
Former Avenger Clint Barton has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. Possible? Maybe with the help of Kate Bishop, a 22-year-old archer with dreams of becoming a superhero. The two are forced to work together when a presence from Barton’s past threatens to derail far more than the festive spirit.
Kate Bishop becomes Hawkeye. Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) returns as the crime boss behind it all — directly setting up his Born Again arc as Mayor of New York.
Why It Matters in the MCU
The Hawkeye series is the MCU's most deliberately holiday-flavored production and its most grounded street-level New York story, using the five-day Christmas countdown structure to build a case-of-the-week procedural that happens to involve superheroes. Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop is the series' strongest creative success — a character with none of Clint Barton's trauma and all of his skill, whose fan-girl relationship with her mentor complicates both of them. The Eleanor Bishop/Kingpin connection reintroduces Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk to the MCU in a way that validates the Netflix run without requiring viewers to have seen it.
Where It Fits in the MCU
Hawkeye (Season 1) sits at position 92 of 133 in the MCU's story-chronological order, placing it within the Phase 4 — Multiverse Opens (2024–2025) era. It is rated Recommended — enriches the story but not strictly required. Watching in story-chronological order provides the most coherent character development experience — individual arcs build naturally toward the franchise's major crossover events, with each film's post-credits scenes carrying forward into what follows.
Official Trailer
Cast
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Movie data from TMDB. Not endorsed by TMDB. As of June 9, 2026