The Four Movies You Need To Watch Before ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ According To The Directors

Avengers: Endgame is almost upon us! The highly-anticipated superhero blockbuster, with an official runtime of 3 hours and 58 seconds, has moviegoers extremely excited to find out how the surviving members of the team will defeat the mad titan Thanos and save the world.

Of course, longtime fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe know that Avengers: Endgame isn’t merely a sequel to Avengers: Infinity War but also a conclusion to the 11-year series, with 21 movies leading to it.

So is it still necessary for new fans to see all 21 Marvel movies before catching Endgame in the theaters?

According to directors Anthony and Joe Russo, there are at least four must-watch movies for newbies – Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War.

In an interview with Fandango, Anthony Russo shared:

“I think you see this movie after movie, the audience keeps growing for these films. So what that tells us is that people are seeing these movies who haven’t seen the previous ones. So it’s important that we are speaking to an audience that is perhaps seeing these stories for the first time.

“That being said, there’s certainly an interconnected story being told. I would say, certainly, Civil War and Infinity War are probably the two biggest lead-ins to this movie, in the sense that Civil War created the situation where the Avengers were divided.”

“The relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers was severed, and that was what put them in a vulnerable place when Thanos came in Infinity War.

“I think that is what partially what led to their demise in that film, the fact that they were divided when the greatest threat they ever faced came to them. So there is definitely a throughline there.”

Of course, it should be noted that the Russo brothers first movie in the MCU was Winter Soldier.

Anthony added:

“I mean, my brother and I, of course, are very focused on story starting from Winter Soldier, because that’s where we entered the MCU.

“So for us, in our brains, on a storytelling level, we were threading a narrative from there.

“Certainly, I would also say that the previous Avengers movies also very much factor into this film.”

As for Ragnarok, an Esquire article tells us that it “helps a lot with understanding crucial bits of chronology, but more than anything, it’s just really, really funny.”

Avengers: Endgame will hit theaters worldwide this coming April 26.