Marvel just handed you homework. With the official Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday podcast now live and a giant countdown clock ticking toward December 18, the studio clearly wants every fan caught up before Doctor Doom crashes the multiverse. The problem is Doomsday pulls threads from three different franchises and two decades of movies, so “what to watch before Avengers: Doomsday” is suddenly the most stressful question in the fandom.
Good news: you do not need to rewatch all 40-odd MCU titles. You need the right ones. Here is the smart, no-filler watch guide, built around Disney’s own essential list, plus the picks the studio weirdly left out.
What is Disney’s official watch before Avengers: Doomsday list?
Around D23, Disney+ quietly published a 15-title “essential viewing” playlist to prep fans for Doomsday. It is the closest thing we have to a studio-sanctioned syllabus, and it tells you a lot about where this movie is pulling its DNA from.
The full list: the original X-Men, X2, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Loki, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Captain America: Brave New World, Deadpool and Wolverine, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thunderbolts, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Notice the shape of it. Two Fox-era X-Men films sit right at the top, which is Marvel telling you loud and clear that the mutants are not a cameo gag in Doomsday, they are load-bearing. The multiverse trio (No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness, Loki) explains the mechanics of how everyone from every timeline can share one screen. And the newest films (Brand New Day’s siblings Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, Brave New World) set up the actual roster walking into the fight.
Which movies should you actually prioritise?
If you only have a weekend, this is our tiered version of the watch before Avengers: Doomsday plan, ranked by how much it will actually help you follow the movie.
- Absolutely non-negotiable: Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame (the emotional and multiversal baseline), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (the rules of incursions), and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (your Reed Richards, and the team most likely to clash with Doom first).
- Very strongly recommended: Loki Season 2 (the TVA, the Sacred Timeline collapse, He Who Remains), Deadpool and Wolverine (how the Fox multiverse officially bled into the MCU), and Thunderbolts (your New Avengers).
- Great context if you have time: the two X-Men films, Shang-Chi, Wakanda Forever, and Brave New World.
Follow that order and you will walk into the theatre understanding the multiverse stakes, who Doom is really fighting, and why the X-Men suddenly matter so much. It is the same logic driving the studio’s rewatch podcast, which climbs toward Endgame across five episodes.
What did Disney leave off the watch before Avengers: Doomsday list?
Here is where we part ways with the official syllabus, because the omissions are genuinely strange. Avengers: Age of Ultron is missing, which is wild when Vision, Wanda, and the birth of the team’s biggest fractures all happen there, and White Vision is central to the upcoming VisionQuest. If you want that thread, start with our breakdown of how VisionQuest sets up Doomsday.
The bigger head-scratcher is Captain Marvel and The Marvels. Fans flagged that Doctor Doom’s armour reportedly carries a Captain Marvel motif, and The Marvels ends on a mutant-shaped cliffhanger that points straight at this era. Leaving Carol and Kamala off the list feels less like an oversight and more like Marvel guarding a spoiler.
Our additions to the official 15: Age of Ultron, WandaVision, The Marvels, and if you want the full mutant emotional gut-punch, the Fox classics Days of Future Past and Logan. None are strictly required, but each one deepens a specific corner of what Doomsday is building.
How does this connect to Secret Wars?
Doomsday is only half the story. Everything you rewatch now is also prep for Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027, where the incursions teased in Multiverse of Madness are expected to pay off in full. The multiverse films you queue up for Doomsday are the exact same foundation Secret Wars will stand on, which is why the smart move is to treat this watchlist as a two-movie investment. For the deeper map, keep our complete Avengers: Doomsday guide and Avengers: Secret Wars guide open in a tab. You can also cross-check every date against the full MCU release calendar.
What happens next
Expect Marvel’s countdown campaign to intensify from here: more podcast episodes every Thursday, a likely second Doomsday trailer this autumn, and probably an updated or expanded official watchlist closer to release. The essentials above will not change, so start now and you will not be cramming in December.
So tell us: what is on your personal watch before Avengers: Doomsday list that Disney forgot, and are you brave enough to attempt the full rewatch before December 18?
Sources: ScreenRant, GamesRadar+, Variety, Deadline. Image: Wikimedia Commons.
