Marvel phases, sagas and chronology: what each one means
Understand the catalogue labels and choose how to follow your characters without confusing release order with story order.
Phases organise the releases
A phase brings together a group of MCU productions. In our grid, this label groups films by their release period. It is not a date within the fiction, nor does it mean that all the characters' adventures take place at the same time.
If you want to follow the characters as audiences originally discovered them, use release order. For example, Iron Man appears before Captain America: The First Avenger, although much of Steve Rogers' story takes place in an earlier era.
A saga can describe different journeys
Marvel uses the names of major sagas for arcs that span several phases. In this site's directory, we also use “saga” in a practical sense: the films of a lead character or team, such as Thor, Iron Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy. Those selections are not equivalent to the major official sagas.
A film can connect several journeys. Captain America: Civil War belongs to the Captain America saga while bringing together characters from other stories. Our guides separate a character's own films from appearances that provide context.
Chronology follows the main story
The chronological route tries to place adventures according to when they happen. That is why Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain Marvel come before Iron Man. Flashbacks, time jumps, alternative universes and credits scenes mean there is not always one perfect position for an entire film.
Which label should you use?
To start from scratch, choose release order. To revisit the stories according to their internal timeline, choose chronology. To spend a few sessions with one character, choose a saga and check its crossovers. Our beginner's guide helps you choose without needing to know every name already.
Three examples to keep the criteria separate
Captain Marvel was released after Infinity War, although its main adventure takes place in the 1990s. Within the story, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 follows shortly after the first volume, although their releases were years apart. The Fantastic Four uses the 1960s of another universe: that setting does not make it the past of every hero.
That is why a phase does not equal a decade, and a character saga does not equal a complete chronology. Changing the selector on the homepage changes the sorting criteria, not the release year shown beside the poster.