Series Phase 4 — The Blip & New Beginnings (2023)

WandaVision (Season 1)

Name: WandaVision (Season 1)
Released: 2021-01-15
Duration: 360 min
Rating: 8.2
Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park

"Experience a new vision of reality."

Released January 15, 2021 6h ★ 8.2TMDB ★ Essential to the MCU

Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives—begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.

How to watch STOP before Ep 9 mid-credit scene — it's a separate entry below

Watch note

Wanda's grief unconsciously traps an entire town in a sitcom reality. She becomes the Scarlet Witch and takes the Darkhold. White Vision is restored. The foundation of everything Multiverse of Madness builds on.

Why It Matters in the MCU

The first Disney+ Marvel series is still the most formally audacious — a story told entirely through the aesthetic register of American sitcoms from the 1950s through the 2010s, in which the comedy of each era is revealed as a coping mechanism for grief. Elizabeth Olsen's performance is the best work the MCU has produced for television, and the slow revelation of Wanda's trauma beneath the genre parody is handled with genuine elegance. The finale's pivot to a conventional superhero confrontation is a structural disappointment after the ambition of the earlier episodes, but the series demonstrated conclusively that the television format gave Marvel room for storytelling theatrical releases couldn't accommodate.

Watch These First

21 titles lead into WandaVision (Season 1) — 46 hours in total. All 21 are essential.

Captain America: The First Avenger Essential 2h 4m ★ 7.0
Captain Marvel Essential 2h 4m ★ 6.8
Iron Man Essential 2h 6m ★ 7.7
Iron Man 2 Essential 2h 4m ★ 6.9
The Incredible Hulk Essential 1h 52m ★ 6.3
Iron Man 2 (Post-Credit Scene) Essential 0h 2m
Thor Essential 1h 55m ★ 6.8 +2 before this
Captain America: The First Avenger (Credits) Essential 0h 2m
Thor (Post-Credit Scene) Essential 0h 2m
The Avengers Essential 2h 23m ★ 8.1 +2 before this
Iron Man 3 Essential 2h 10m ★ 6.9
Thor: The Dark World Essential 1h 52m ★ 6.5
Captain America: The Winter Soldier Essential 2h 16m ★ 7.7 +3 before this
Guardians of the Galaxy Essential 2h 1m ★ 7.9
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Essential 2h 16m ★ 7.6
Avengers: Age of Ultron Essential 2h 21m ★ 7.3
Captain America: Civil War Essential 2h 27m ★ 7.5 +1 before this
Eyes of Wakanda (Season 1) Essential 2h ★ 6.2
Black Panther Essential 2h 14m ★ 7.4
Spider-Man: Homecoming Essential 2h 13m ★ 7.3
Doctor Strange Essential 1h 55m ★ 7.4
Thor: Ragnarok Essential 2h 10m ★ 7.6 +2 before this
Avengers: Infinity War Essential 2h 29m ★ 8.2 +5 before this
Captain Marvel (Post-Credits Scene) Essential 0h 2m
Avengers: Endgame Essential 3h 2m ★ 8.2 +10 before this
Avengers: Endgame Encore Essential 3h 5m +10 before this

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Where It Fits in the MCU

WandaVision (Season 1) sits at position 107 of 158 in the MCU's story-chronological order, placing it within the Phase 4 — The Blip & New Beginnings (2023) era. It is rated Essential — later MCU titles build on it. 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.