Disney+ Confirms Official Watchlist Before Avengers: Doomsday Despite 'Phase Zero' Comments

Gambit with a glowing card in Avengers Doomsday

Published Aug 17, 2026, 11:22 AM EDT

Lee Freitag is a senior author at CBR, with more than four years of experience in entertainment and pop culture journalism. While CBR remains the go-to spot to find Lee’s latest articles, his movie and TV news coverage has also been featured on SuperHeroHype and ComingSoon.

Sorry, comic book fans, but it looks like Avengers: Doomsday will require you to revisit previous Marvel movies after all. The “Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday” watchlist has been revealed on Disney+.

This new Disney+ watchlist seems to go against director Joe Russo’s recent comments that the upcoming crossover was taking the shared universe “back to phase zero.” The streamer is tasking fans with revisiting X-Men and Marvel Cinematic Universe movies before heading to theaters to see Doomsday in December.

Marvel Fans Need to Rewatch 14 Movies Before Doomsday

The movies on the “Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday” watchlist are the non-MCU canon X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003), as well as:

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
The Avengers (2012)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Thunderbolts* (2025)
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

The only show that made the watchlist was Loki. This makes sense as, outside What If…?, it was the only MCU series on Disney+ to tackle the multiverse concept. The series ended after two seasons with Loki becoming the God of Stories, a.k.a. the new keeper of the MCU timeline and the TVA.

Most of the movies included in the watchlist either deal with the multiverse or feature characters who will appear in Doomsday. Captain America: The First Avenger‘s inclusion is there largely to remind audiences that Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) returned to the past at the end of Endgame to reunite with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).

Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on Dec. 18.

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