Every "watch everything" guide is written by someone who has already watched everything. If you have a month and not a year, the honest answer is that Doomsday depends on eleven films, and you can skip the rest without losing the plot.
The essential eleven
In release order, because the films were built to be read that way.
- The Avengers — establishes the team, and Loki, who matters again
- Age of Ultron — the first crack in the team, and the origin of the Vision
- Infinity War — establishes that the heroes can lose outright
- Endgame — closes the Infinity Saga and hands the shield to Sam Wilson
Those four are non-negotiable. The other seven are the multiverse groundwork: the Doctor Strange sequel, the Loki series, the Ant-Man threequel, Deadpool, the Fantastic Four film, and the two most recent team-adjacent releases.
What each one is actually for
The multiverse mechanics. You need to understand that realities can collide, and that someone was holding them apart. Two films and one series cover this between them.
The Fantastic Four. Reed and Sue arrive in Doomsday from their own universe, carrying a history with Doom that the film assumes you know. This is the entry we added after the final trailer.
The current roster. The team in Doomsday is not the team from Endgame. If the last Avengers film you saw was 2019, you will not recognise half the people on screen.
Chronological or release order?
Release order. Chronological order is a fun second watch and a poor first one — the films were written to reveal information in the order they came out, and reordering them spoils several reveals that depend on the audience not knowing yet.
Our timeline supports both, with a toggle, if you want to see how much they differ.
