Movie
X-Men Universe
The conflict between difference and coexistence has shaped this mutant world for more than two decades.
The X-Men have never been defined only by their powers, but by the question of whether mutants and humans can live together. The opposing visions of Professor X and Magneto have shaped the franchise for more than two decades, from early live-action experiments to feature films, prequels, spin-offs and television expansions. After the end of the Fox era, the mutant world now moves toward a new chapter within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Curator's Note
When X-Men arrived in theaters in 2000, Marvel did not yet have the cinematic empire it has today. The story of these mutants was not launched by Marvel Studios, but by 20th Century Fox, where it developed across more than two decades before eventually returning to Marvel.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, the X-Men were unlike many traditional superheroes. They were not simply people who gained extraordinary abilities through accidents or experiments; they were born different from the world around them. From the beginning, mutant stories revolved around a lasting question: can a society truly accept those who cannot change who they are?
After Marvel’s financial struggles in the 1990s, the film rights to the X-Men moved to Fox. The 2000 film X-Men not only established a cinematic universe separate from what would later become the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also became one of the foundations of modern superhero filmmaking. Over more than twenty years, Fox built its own mutant saga, while performances such as Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Ian McKellen’s Magneto became inseparable from the identity of these characters.
The greatest legacy of the X-Men is not the ownership of the characters, but the memories created by the actors who gave them life. When Disney acquired Fox and the X-Men returned to Marvel, the most meaningful choice was not to erase the past, but to recognize that those performances and stories had already become part of the franchise’s history.
From Days of Future Past rewriting the timeline, to Logan offering what felt like a final farewell, and later Deadpool & Wolverine bringing familiar faces back into the spotlight, the X-Men have recorded more than the evolution of a superhero franchise. They have also reflected the changing relationship between comics, cinema and the business of storytelling.
The X-Men can begin again, but the characters and memories that defined this world will not disappear.
Curated by Nexus Editorial·Editorial Review: 2026
Early Live-Action Exploration
From early live-action experiments to the original trilogy, the mutant world gradually found its cinematic identity. · CHAPTER 01 (3 Movies)
The film that truly established Fox’s live-action mutant world. Rather than treating mutation as a simple source of heroic power, it centered fear, exclusion and coexistence.
Two mutants, Rogue and Wolverine, come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.
A deeper extension of the first film’s central tensions. Human hostility forces rival mutants into temporary alliance and shows how fear can become institutional power.
The conclusion of the original trilogy and the first Fox film to place the idea of a mutant cure at the center. Despite its divided reception, its questions about identity shaped later stories.
Prequels and Timeline Reconstruction
The past was reopened as a younger generation reshaped the timeline of the franchise. · CHAPTER 02 (4 Movies)
The franchise’s first major attempt to build a solo story around a central character, revisiting Weapon X and Victor Creed while expanding beyond team films.
After seeking to live a normal life, Logan sets out to avenge the death of his girlfriend by undergoing the mutant Weapon X program and becoming Wolverine.
A major reset for the franchise, returning to the early friendship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr before their beliefs became opposing ideologies.
Rather than expanding the mythology, the film focuses on Logan’s grief, isolation and mortality, preparing the emotional ground for Logan.
The defining structural turning point of the Fox X-Men universe, bringing two generations together and using time travel to rewrite the franchise’s past.
The Rise of the Spin-Offs
As the main saga lost momentum, spin-offs created new directions for the mutant world. · CHAPTER 03 (6 Movies)
The film that proved the X-Men world could function far outside the tone of the main team series. Its R-rated violence, irreverent comedy and fourth-wall breaking opened a completely different path for the franchise.
The origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who, after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
The prequel timeline continued to expand in scale, but the strain of the long-running series became harder to hide. A younger X-Men team emerged while losing some of the sharper tensions of earlier films.
One of the boldest live-action interpretations of mutant experience. Rather than treating power as spectacle, the series makes perception, identity and reality itself unstable.
One of the defining works of the Fox era. Stripping away superhero spectacle, it turns Wolverine’s immortality into a story about aging, responsibility and death.
A grounded expansion of the mutant world that shifts attention from famous X-Men to ordinary families. Registration, persecution and survival return to the center of the story.
The sequel confirmed that Deadpool was more than a one-film experiment. By introducing Cable, Domino and X-Force, it expanded the branch into a lasting part of the X-Men world.
Transition and Rebirth
After the end of the previous era, a new mutant world begins to take shape. · CHAPTER 04 (4 Movies)
The final mainline X-Men film of the Fox era. Returning to Jean Grey and the Phoenix story, it struggled to recover the emotional force of the franchise’s earlier relationships.
The X-Men face their most formidable and powerful foe when one of their own, Jean Grey, starts to spiral out of control. During a rescue mission in outer space, Jean is nearly killed when she's hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. The X-Men must now b
One of the final completed projects from the Fox era, combining coming-of-age drama, confinement and horror while becoming a unique remnant of a changing franchise.
More than a return for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, the film directly revisits two decades of Fox superhero history and brings old characters, timelines and memories back into focus.
Untitled X-Men Film
(2028)Marvel Studios officially launches the MCU reboot of the X-Men, marking the beginning of a brand-new era for mutants on the big screen.