Chris Hemsworth's 5 Best Marvel Movies, Ranked

The reason Chris Hemsworth became one of the MCU’s most loved leads is everything around the hammer — the arrogance, the hurt, the comedy, the grief, the way he can make Thor feel like a god one second and a deeply lost son the next. That range is what makes his best Marvel movies so satisfying. You’re watching a strong guy hit harder and get stronger because of his pure intent and you’re watching a character keep getting broken open and rebuilt.

So this ranking is about where Hemsworth gets the richest material and actually runs with it: the movies that let him be funny, mythic, reckless, wounded, and weirdly tender all in the same performance. These are the entries where Thor feels fully alive, and where Hemsworth reminds you he’s one of the MCU’s most versatile stars.

5 'Thor' (2011)

Thor belongs here because it’s the movie where Hemsworth has to pull off the hardest trick: make Thor’s arrogance entertaining before the story earns his humility. Thor (Hemsworth) enters like a royal disaster. He’s powerful, impulsive, hungry for war, and completely convinced he’s ready to be king. The film gives him a huge personality right away, and Hemsworth makes that confidence fun enough that you enjoy him even while the movie is clearly setting him up to fall. Once Odin (Anthony Hopkins) strips him of Mjolnir and banishes him to Earth, the performance shifts into something looser and more vulnerable.

That Earth stretch is where the movie really wins. Thor learning human scale, awkwardly, loudly, sometimes hilariously, gives Hemsworth room to show charm. His chemistry with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) helps, but the emotional engine is really family: Thor, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Odin all pulling on the same wound from different directions. By the time Thor chooses sacrifice over ego, the growth claps so well because Hemsworth made the earlier version of him feel so real.

4 'The Avengers' (2012)

A lot of actors would disappear in a movie this crowded. Hemsworth doesn’t. The Avengers gives Thor very little time for introspection, but he still comes through as both mythic and personal because his motivation is so emotionally clear: Loki is his brother, Earth is in danger, and he’s trying to stop a catastrophe without pretending the family part doesn’t matter. That balance matters. Thor doesn’t walk in as team player Thor yet. He walks in as a prince handling a disaster that became everyone else’s problem too.

Hemsworth is also just incredibly fun here because he understands how to play Thor’s seriousness against the chaos around him. The culture-clash beats land, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) confrontation has weight, and the quiet frustration in his scenes with Loki gives the movie real emotional texture under all the spectacle. In a film built on giant personalities colliding, Thor still feels distinct. He brings myth, grief, pride, and brute-force credibility all at once, and Hemsworth keeps it clean.

3 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019)

This is one of Hemsworth’s boldest MCU performances because Endgame lets Thor be messy in a way blockbuster heroes usually aren’t allowed to be. He’s grieving, ashamed, angry, checked out, and trying to bury all of it under avoidance. The movie gives him humor, and Hemsworth absolutely lands it, but the reason the performance works is that the pain never disappears underneath the jokes. You can feel the failure of Infinity War hanging on him in every scene. He’s not a funny depressed guy. He’s actually that because of a solid reason. He looks like someone who cannot stop replaying the moment he missed.

Then the movie starts giving him grace, and that’s where Hemsworth really gets you. The scene with Frigga (Rene Russo) is one of Thor’s best moments in the entire MCU because the emotion comes out sideways — shame, relief, love, panic, all at once. And when Mjolnir returns to his hand and he whispers that he’s still worthy, it hits hard because Hemsworth earns that release. It’s a superhero beat, yes. It also feels like a human one.

2 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018)

If you want peak Thor as a force of nature, this is the movie. Infinity War takes Thor, puts him through devastating loss almost immediately, and then turns that pain into mission focus. Loki is gone. Heimdall (Idris Elba) is gone. Asgard is shattered. And Hemsworth plays the aftermath with this locked-in intensity that makes every scene feel charged. Thor isn’t numb. He’s burning. The difference matters, because the movie keeps showing the grief inside the determination instead of flattening him into a revenge machine.

The chemistry helps this movie a lot too. His scenes with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) are funny in that very Thor way — grand, slightly absurd, strangely sweet, while still moving the story forward. Then Wakanda happens, and Hemsworth gets one of the most electric hero entrances in the MCU. It works because the movie built the ache first. By the time Thor arrives with Stormbreaker, you’re cheering for a wounded character finally hitting back. And the ending hurts because Hemsworth makes the victory moment curdle into horror in seconds.

1 'Thor: Ragnarok' (2017)

This is the top spot because Thor: Ragnarok is where Hemsworth fully unlocks the character. Thor had always been compelling, but this is the movie that lets him be genuinely hilarious, emotionally bruised, physically dominant, and dramatically flexible all at once. The movie strips him down fast, hammer gone, Asgard threatened, family chaos back on the menu, and instead of making him smaller, it gives Hemsworth space to reinvent Thor’s rhythm. The comedic timing is incredible, but it works because the panic and frustration underneath it are real.

Ragnarok is so rewatchable because of how much character movement happens inside the fun. His scenes with Loki still carry years of resentment and love. His respect for Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) grows in a way that feels earned. His confrontation with Odin and the realization about what his power actually is gives the movie a genuine emotional lift. And by the end, when Thor chooses his people over the place, the movie lands on something bigger than a cool win. Hemsworth makes it feel like a king being born in the middle of a disaster.