Superheroes are everywhere. Since the dawn of the 21st century, people with superhuman abilities have been the dominant force in blockbuster cinema, ruling the box office like no other genre in history.

There were superhero movies before 2000, of course – most notably Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton’s Batman – but the evolution of CG effects means that pretty much anything is now possible on screen these days.

We’re also seeing the biggest stars and the best filmmakers queuing up to work in the Marvel and DC universes, so the quality is generally high. Bona fide flops like 2015’s Fantastic Four are rarities.

There are loads of super movies that could have made the cut for this top 10, but ShortList has assembled the line-up below from a variety of franchises, genres and styles...

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1. Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Although Blade and X-Men had already kickstarted the 21st century’s love affair with movies based on Marvel comics, the quality was still wildly inconsistent when Spider-Man 2 swung into multiplexes. Tobey Maguire’s second outing in the red Lycra remains the Wallcrawler’s best, however, managing to be both faithful to the source material (some scenes are direct lifts of comic book panels) and thrilling blockbuster cinema – the webslinging sequences are a visible step up from director Sam Raimi’s first Spidey movie.

The main reason this sequel works, however, is Alfred Molina’s tortured Dr Octopus, the perfect screen incarnation of Spider-Man’s most enduring foe.

2. Unbreakable (2000)

Arguably the cleverest thing about Unbreakable is that nobody realised it was a superhero movie until they watched it – though with writer/director M Night Shyamalan hot off the back of The Sixth Sense, we should have guessed there was some kind of twist.

Bruce Willis delivers one of his best ever performances as a security guard who discovers he may have a little something extra going on when he survives a fatal train crash. Samuel L Jackson, meanwhile, is the brittle-boned comic book expert who thinks he’s found a real-life hero. Years ahead of its time.

3. Superman: The Movie (1978)

Years before superhero movies became fashionable, Richard Donner’s 1978 classic made the world believe a man could fly. The late Christopher Reeve is perfectly cast as both the Man of Steel and his bumbling reporter alter-ego Clark Kent, while his relationship with Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane sizzles with the sexual tension of a classic screwball comedy.

While the final act loses its way a bit – a perennial problem with Superman movies – this remains a classic, nailing Kal-El’s Kryptonian origin story and providing a charismatic villain in Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor.

4. Wonder Woman (2017)

For years Hollywood laboured under the misapprehension cinemagoers wouldn’t pay to see a female-fronted superhero movie. Wonder Woman changed all that, blazing a trail for the likes of Captain Marvel, Birds of Prey and Black Widow – and hopefully silencing those ludicrous conversations for good.

Having been a rare ray of light in the mediocre Batman v Superman, Gal Gadot’s Amazon princess Diana puts the fun back into DC’s previously dour cinematic universe. And while there’s no room for her invisible jet in this World War I-set adventure, the lasso of truth is all present and correct.

5. The Incredibles (2004)

It’s not all about Marvel and DC, you know…

Made in Pixar’s earlier days when the studio barely put a foot wrong, The Incredibles puts its own family-friendly spin on the superhero flick. Most of the superpowers on display riff on familiar characters from elsewhere, but Brad Bird’s movie is much more interested in family dynamics.

With supers banned in the movie’s beautifully retro-future, gone-to-seed strong man Mr Incredible comes out of retirement to do some consultancy work for a shadowy organisation – and drags his whole family into a monologuing supervillain’s plans for world domination.

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