The New York Times has ranked "Black Panther" at #96 on its list of The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, making it the second highest-ranked superhero movie (out of just two) on the list.
The New York Times has ranked "Black Panther" at #96 on its list of The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, making it the second highest-ranked superhero movie (out of just two) on the list.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/best-movies-21st-century.html
96. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
There’s so much to love. It’s a superhero spectacle that actually has something important to say, about how identity, history and responsibility intersect. Wakanda, the Afrofuturistic world where the story takes place, is a visual wonder. The women (played by Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o and Letitia Wright — all excellent) aren’t just sidekicks or love interests. Michael B. Jordan, as the tragically villainous Killmonger, has never been more swoon worthy. And, of course, Chadwick Boseman shines in the title role, sadly one of his last before dying of cancer.
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there's not a whole lot truly different between most of the superhero movies though. I guess hot warrior ladies and the man in the skinsuit is cat themed?
This just isn't true. Each film has a different story to tell beyond just the action.
Uh huh. The same story. In the same ways. With the same lines, beats, set pieces, and token nods to source or prior films. It's formulaic as fuck, intentionally so by the mass surveying audience tested averaging out of studios. This is a machine that repackages your childhood into consumable, repeatable, manufacturable content, not art.
I'm not saying don't enjoy it, but saying any superhero film from the last 20 years hasn't had studio's by-the-book vogler story in a can approach is consuming with blinkers on.
For most people under 30, they didn't read the original comics, so I would hardly call it "repackaging their childhood". And no, it's not the same story. I'll use the Guardians of the Galaxy films as an example:
- GotG 1 is a pretty standard story about the unlikely group of heroes learning to work together, mixed with Peter learning to confront his problems rather than run away from them
- GotG 2 deals with the disillusionment of meeting your heroes and Peter must make a choice to give up literal godhood for moral reasons, choosing his adopted father over his birth one
- GotG 3 is about Rocket confronting his past and accepting who he is, which he had struggled with for both previous films
These stories aren't unique from every other story ever told. But they are different from each other. And art is very subjective; you don't have the authority to declare something not art without a good argument.