The MCU movies to watch before Doctor Strange 2 in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange has finally returned to his movie after six long years spent in a team with cosmic threats. Since his debut solo film, Stephen Strange has seen a lot of changes. For one thing, he’s opened up the chaos of the infinite multiverse, which means things could get a little complicated for the sequel.

To help you get ready for Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of Madness, we’ve put together a few lists of the movies you should catch up on. Of course, you could just watch all the Marvel movies again, but that’s a lot of work and you’re probably not going get a lot of Iron Man 2 references out of the MCU’s latest addition to the franchise.

The first two sections are what you should watch if you hope to pick up on all the important story beats of Doctor Strange’s latest adventure. They’re probably not necessary for understanding the story, but watching these six movies, two series, and two episodes will help quite a bit. This last section, though optional, contains some of our worst (and most hilarious) guesses as to which cameos may be significant.

[Ed. note: This post may or may not contain spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — it really depends on how good we are at guessing.]

Image: Marvel Studios

The bare minimum (Stephen’s story, mostly)

This includes most of the movies which brought Stephen Strange to the place he is today. Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of Madness. His origin story is included, as well as his greatest battles and most regrettable decisions. But it’s also got a few added bonuses, like Loki, to help give you a crash course in Marvel’s multiverse, as well as Doctor Strange’s animated What if …?Episode, to give you an idea of the bizarre and horrible things that can happen in the endless realities.

• Doctor Strange
• Avengers: Infinity War
• Avengers: Endgame
• WandaVision
• Loki
• “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”
• Spider-Man has no way home

Image by Marvel Studios/Disney

The Wanda essentials

This is everything you need to catch up on Wanda Maximoff’s journey so far. It won’t quite answer all your multiverse questions, so it’s probably best paired with the Stephen list above, but we’ve included a few double-ups in case Scarlet Witch’s story is the only thing you need a refresher on. The list includes an episode. What if …? that includes Zombie Wanda, which … seems like it’s going to be relevant to Marvel’s new movie.

• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Civil War Captain America
• Avengers: Infinity War
• Avengers: Endgame
• “What If… Zombies?!”
• WandaVision

Image: Disney

Multiversal optimist

This goes above and beyond what the MCU completeists can handle. Yes, it is possible to watch the Marvel films again. Multiverse of MadnessBut you knew it already. If you’ve made it this far, it’s because you’re looking for what non-MCU movies might be important this time around, so that’s what this list is — at least, it’s our best guesses on the topic.

• X-Men — If Patrick Stewart really is playing Professor X in this movie, then it’s worth going back to watch the first time he took the role.
• Hulk (2003) — Eric Bana’s Hulk is easily the least essential, weirdest, and least beloved cameo possible. That’s why they should do it.
• Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer — Look, this movie’s bad, but it does give us all of the Fantastic Four hits, including Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and Doctor Doom, so it could be a good primer if Marvel wants to do something daring like introduce Reed Richards and his family.
• X-Men: Days of Future Past — It’s a little catch-all to cover every X-Men universe that we might or may not be able to get into. Multiverse of Madness.
• Deadpool — This is the one that explains everything. This movie could have Deadpool in it.
• Inhumans — This trailer was one of the very last. Multiverse of Madness directly mentions the Illuminati (a shadowy Marvel Comics cabal made up of the smartest and most politically powerful superheroes), so it’s very possible we could see a cameo (or more) from prominent member of the Illuminati, Black Bolt, king of the Humans. Black Bolt also happened to have been the star of Marvel’s 2017 Inhumans After one season, the TV series was cancelled.