
Robert Downey Jr. Scarlett Johansson. Samuel L. Jackson. Don Cheadle. Kathryn Hahn. Tom Hiddleston. Angela Bassett. Elizabeth Olsen. Mark Ruffalo. Natalie Portman. Zoe Saldaña. Michael B. Jordan. Brie Larson. Stellan Skarsgård. Benedict Cumberbatch. Chadwick Boseman. Florence Pugh. Anthony Hopkins. Tilda Swinton. Cate Blanchett. Michelle Yeoh. This is an extremely incomplete list of great actors—icons, legends, cult heroes, Oscar and Emmy winners—who have inhabited characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Many of their performances in those titles were overseen by an impressive roster of established and emerging directors: Kenneth Branagh, Chloé Zhao, Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi, Nia DaCosta. Yet, despite the occasional Black Panther-level triumph, the MCU has never come close to equaling the sum of its parts.