Fourteen. That’s the short answer. If you just wanted a number to win a bar bet or settle a living room debate, there you go. But honestly, if you're trying to actually watch them or make sense of the timeline, that number is kinda deceptive.
You see, the X-Men franchise isn't like the MCU where everything fits into a nice, neat box. It’s a beautiful, chaotic mess of retcons, time travel, and "wait, didn't he die?" moments. Between the original trilogy, the prequels, the Wolverine solo runs, and the Deadpool side-quests, the water gets murky fast. Especially now that we're in 2026 and the "FoX-Men" are officially bleeding into the Marvel Cinematic Universe via the Multiverse.
The Core Count: Breaking Down the 14 Films
When we talk about how many X-Men movies are there, we’re usually referring to the 13 films produced by 20th Century Fox plus the massive MCU crossover that changed everything recently.
The Original Trilogy (2000–2006)
This is where it all started.
- X-Men (2000): The one that proved superheroes could wear black leather and still be taken seriously.
- X2: X-Men United (2003): Most fans still rank this as one of the best. That White House opening scene with Nightcrawler? Absolute peak.
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006): A bit of a polarizing one, mostly because it tried to cram the Dark Phoenix saga into about forty minutes of screentime.
The Prequel Quadrology (2011–2019)
Fox decided to hit the reset button, but in a weird way that eventually looped back around.
- X-Men: First Class (2011): 1960s vibes, Michael Fassbender being incredible, and a fresh start.
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014): This is the big one. It combined the old cast and the new cast. It basically told the audience, "Hey, remember those movies you didn't like? We're erasing them now."
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016): Big stakes, 80s setting, mixed results.
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019): The final "mainline" Fox movie. It felt a bit like a repeat of The Last Stand, and honestly, the box office reflected that.
The Wolverine Trilogy
Hugh Jackman is the only guy who stayed through the whole thing. He got his own side-adventures, and they vary wildly in quality. Basically, you have the "bad" one, the "okay" one, and the "masterpiece."
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- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009): We don't talk about what they did to Deadpool's mouth here.
- The Wolverine (2013): A solid Japan-set action flick that gets a bit weird at the end with a giant silver robot.
- Logan (2017): This isn't just a "superhero movie." It’s a Western. It’s heartbreaking. It was supposed to be the end for Jackman. (Spoiler: It wasn't).
The "New" Blood and Deadpool
- Deadpool (2016): The R-rated gamble that paid off massively.
- Deadpool 2 (2018): More meta-jokes, more Cable, and a lot of time-traveling shenanigans.
- The New Mutants (2020): The "forgotten" child. It’s a horror-leaning spin-off that sat on a shelf for years because of the Disney merger.
The Multiverse Entry
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024): This is the 14th movie. It’s technically an MCU film, but it's a direct love letter (and funeral) for the Fox era. It’s the bridge that makes the previous 13 movies relevant to the modern Marvel world.
Why the Order is Such a Headache
If you try to watch these in the order they came out, you'll be fine. If you try to watch them chronologically by the years they take place? Good luck.
X-Men: First Class starts in the 40s and 60s. Origins jumps from the 1800s to the 70s. Days of Future Past happens in 1973 and a dystopian 2023 at the same time. Then, because of the time travel in that movie, the events of X-Men 1, 2, and 3 basically never happened—or they happened differently.
It’s confusing.
Take Jean Grey, for instance. She dies in The Last Stand (set around 2006). But then she's alive and well in the "fixed" future at the end of Days of Future Past. But then we see her younger self go through a completely different Phoenix transformation in the 90s during Dark Phoenix.
Honestly, the best way to handle it is to just go with the flow. Don't worry about the plot holes. They’re mutants; they do what they want.
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The 2026 Perspective: Where Are the Mutants Now?
We’re sitting here in early 2026, and the landscape has shifted again. While there are 14 "old" movies, we’re currently staring down the barrel of a full-scale MCU reboot. Kevin Feige has been teasing the "Mutant Saga" for a while now.
We’ve seen Patrick Stewart’s Professor X show up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. We saw Kelsey Grammer’s Beast in the post-credits of The Marvels. And of course, the 2024 Deadpool flick blew the doors off.
Rumors for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday (scheduled for later this year) suggest even more of the Fox-era cast might be suiting up one last time before Marvel Studios casts a completely new team for the 2027/2028 window.
Common Misconceptions About the Count
People often forget The New Mutants. Since it doesn't have "X-Men" in the title and it feels so different from the rest, it’s easy to overlook. But it’s definitely part of that Fox universe.
Another sticking point is the TV shows. Legion and The Gifted are fantastic (well, Legion is fantastic; The Gifted is... fine), but they aren't movies. They don't count toward your 14. Neither does X-Men '97, the animated series that everyone is obsessed with right now. That’s its own masterpiece, totally separate from the live-action films.
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Actionable Steps for Your Rewatch
If you’re planning to dive back into the world of Xavier and Magneto, don't just pick a movie at random. Here is how you should actually spend your weekend:
- The "Quality Only" Run: Watch X-Men, X2, First Class, Days of Future Past, Logan, and Deadpool & Wolverine. You skip the fluff and the failures and get the strongest narrative arc.
- The "Chronological" Nightmare: If you have 30 hours to kill, start with the 1962 scenes of First Class and try to piece it together. (Note: This will likely result in a headache).
- The "Multiverse Prep": Focus on the movies that Disney has been referencing lately. That means the original trilogy and the Deadpool films.
The reality is that while there are 14 movies right now, that number is going to balloon soon. We are in the era of the X-Men's homecoming. Whether they keep the old actors or bring in fresh faces, the "X-Men movie" category is about to get a lot more crowded.
Check your Disney+ subscription—almost all of these are sitting there waiting for you. Except maybe for some of the Spider-Man adjacent stuff or weird licensing holdouts, but for the most part, the "Mutant" tab is your best friend for a rainy Sunday.
Start with Logan. It’s the best one. Seriously.