The fastest way to prepare for Avengers: Doomsday is to revisit Avengers: Endgame, the Loki series, the multiverse films and the Fox-era X-Men movies. The film opens in US theaters on December 18, 2026, and two days earlier in the UK on December 16. Our Avengers: Doomsday release date and cast guide keeps the confirmed facts in one place. This page answers a different question: what is worth watching first.
What follows is our own selection, not an official Marvel list, built from two watch-before guides, Screen Rant’s countdown of 15 titles (July 21, 2026) and JustWatch’s viewing guide (last updated September 24, 2026), plus what the official trailer shows. Where those guides agree, we say so. Where a pick is our judgement, we say that too.
Start with Avengers: Endgame
Screen Rant says the Russo brothers have described Doomsday as a direct continuation of Endgame, which they also directed. That makes it the one film you should not skip. The trailer leans on it: it ends with Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers walking into a room, saying “Hey, pal” and calling Thor’s hammer Mjölnir to his hand, according to Gizmodo’s breakdown of the trailer.
Related Reading
The multiverse setup: Loki, Doctor Strange and Wakanda Forever
Loki (Disney+, two seasons). JustWatch lists it as the place that explains the TVA and the idea of variants. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is in the trailer holding a TVA card, which Screen Rant says has a picture of the multiversal tree on the back.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Both guides include it. Screen Rant says it introduced incursions, the collisions between universes. JustWatch calls it the first official introduction to the multiverse and notes that it holds Professor X’s most recent MCU appearance. Patrick Stewart is on Marvel’s Doomsday cast list.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Namor and the undersea kingdom of Talokan debuted here. In the trailer, Shuri and M’Baku face Namor on his throne, so the background helps.
The X-Men films
Several actors from the Fox-era films are in Doomsday, including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Kelsey Grammer, Alan Cumming and Channing Tatum, as we list in the cast guide. Both guides recommend revisiting those films. Screen Rant lists the original trilogy and X-Men: Days of Future Past; JustWatch lists the same four films and points out that X2 introduced Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler and that Days of Future Past changed how the original trilogy ends. Screen Rant adds a note of caution of its own: it says the timeline rewrite in Days of Future Past “could” connect to the X-Men’s return, which is the writer’s guess, not a Marvel statement.
Screen Rant also recommends The Marvels, because Monica Rambeau ends up trapped in another universe inside the X-Mansion with Kelsey Grammer’s Beast. We count it as a useful extra rather than essential viewing.
Shang-Chi and the Fantastic Four
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) is on both lists because the character is in the film: the trailer shows him fighting Gambit. For the Fantastic Four, our extra pick is The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025). Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are on Doomsday’s cast, and TV Insider reports that Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom had a brief post-credits appearance in that film, his only MCU appearance so far.
Other films that help
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2022). Screen Rant includes it for its multiverse consequences. Marvel has not confirmed that any version of Spider-Man appears in Doomsday.
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). JustWatch includes it as the last time we saw Thor, who leads the heroes’ speeches in the trailer.
- Thunderbolts*. The trailer groups Yelena Belova, Ghost, U.S. Agent and Red Guardian together as a team, per Gizmodo. Our cast guide has the full list.
- Marvel’s TV side. Our guide to VisionQuest’s Disney+ release schedule covers the next Marvel series.
If you only have a weekend
This short route is our editorial pick, not an official list: Avengers: Endgame, Loki season 2, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. If you have more time, add the first two X-Men films and Shang-Chi.
Where to stream
JustWatch’s US guide, checked on November 8, 2026, shows most of these on Disney+, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness also on YouTube TV. Availability changes by country and over time, and the Fox X-Men films can move between services, so check your own region before you plan an evening.
Sources
- Screen Rant: Every Marvel movie and show to watch before Avengers: Doomsday
- JustWatch: Movies to watch before Avengers: Doomsday
- Gizmodo: Avengers: Doomsday trailer breakdown
- Screen Rant: Avengers: Doomsday trailer breakdown
- TV Insider via Yahoo: Doctor Doom comics and backstory guide
- TheWrap: Avengers: Doomsday cast livestream
Like our coverage? Add xplorely.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our stories in Top Stories.
