Avengers: Endgame was the direct sequel to 2018's Infinity War and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The project was conceived as a two-part finale to the Infinity Saga, initially announced as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 and Part 2. The directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, along with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who had previously collaborated on The Winter Soldier and Civil War, returned to helm both films. Filming for Infinity War and Endgame was conducted back-to-back, beginning in January 2017 and concluding in January 2018, primarily at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Georgia. The decision to separate the titles was made to ensure each film felt like a distinct story, with Infinity War being told from Thanos's perspective as the protagonist and Endgame focusing entirely on the original six Avengers and their response to catastrophic loss. The title “Endgame” was a closely guarded secret, having been famously spoken by Doctor Strange in Infinity War, creating immense fan speculation. Released on April 26, 2019, Avengers: Endgame shattered numerous box office records worldwide. It became the fastest film to gross $1 billion and $2 billion, and it ultimately surpassed Avatar (2009) to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a position it held for nearly two years.1) Critically, the film was lauded for its emotional weight, satisfying character conclusions, and ambitious scale, and is widely regarded as a landmark achievement in cinematic history and a fitting conclusion to a decade of storytelling.
While the plot of Endgame is an original creation for the MCU, its foundational elements are deeply rooted in decades of Marvel Comics lore. The writers and directors drew from a wellspring of classic storylines to craft the film's narrative.
The primary source of inspiration for both Infinity War and Endgame is Jim Starlin's seminal 1991 comic series, Infinity Gauntlet. In this storyline, Thanos of Titan assembles the six Infinity Gems (called Stones in the MCU) to impress the cosmic entity Death, whom he is in love with. To prove his devotion, he uses the Gauntlet to erase half of all living beings in the universe with a literal snap of his fingers.
The remaining heroes of Earth, led by a resurrected Adam Warlock, band together with cosmic entities like Galactus and the Living Tribunal to confront Thanos on his cosmic throne. The direct assault is a catastrophic failure, with heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor being swiftly and brutally defeated. Victory is only achieved through Thanos's own hubris. He ascends to a cosmic form, leaving his physical body and the Gauntlet vulnerable. His spurned “granddaughter,” Nebula, seizes the Gauntlet and reverses the snap, but proves to be an even more unstable wielder. The Gauntlet eventually falls to Adam Warlock, who restores order to the universe.
Key differences from Endgame include:
Other comic elements woven into the film include Clint Barton's transformation into Ronin, a grim identity he adopted in the comics after the events of House of M and Civil War, and Captain America's worthiness to wield Mjolnir, a famous moment that occurred during the Fear Itself storyline.
The film opens a mere 23 days after the “Decimation” event in Infinity War. The surviving heroes—including Tony Stark and Nebula, who are stranded in space—track Thanos to his garden planet. They discover he has used the Stones' power to destroy the Stones themselves to prevent his work from being undone. In a fit of rage and despair, Thor decapitates the defenseless Titan. The narrative then jumps five years into the future. The world is in a state of global mourning and decay. The remaining Avengers have fractured: Steve Rogers leads grief support groups, Natasha Romanoff grimly manages the galaxy's remaining defenses, Bruce Banner has merged his intellect with the Hulk's strength to become “Professor Hulk,” Thor has become an overweight, alcoholic recluse in New Asgard, and Clint Barton, having lost his entire family, has become the merciless vigilante Ronin. The catalyst for hope arrives with the unexpected return of Ant-Man from the Quantum Realm. He explains that while five years have passed for the world, only five hours passed for him. He theorizes that the Quantum Realm could be used as a conduit for time travel. The heroes realize they can travel to points in the past to “borrow” the Infinity Stones before Thanos acquired them, use them to reverse the snap in the present, and then return them to their original timelines to prevent catastrophic paradoxes. This plan is dubbed the “Time Heist.” The team splits up:
The Avengers return to the present, but a version of Nebula from 2014, whose systems were linked with her past self, has been replaced by her still-loyal-to-Thanos past self. This 2014 Nebula uses the time platform to bring the 2014 version of Thanos and his entire warship, the Sanctuary II, to the present. As Professor Hulk successfully uses a new “Nano Gauntlet” to perform the “Blip,” bringing everyone back, Thanos's ship obliterates the Avengers Compound. A final, desperate battle ensues. Thor, Iron Man, and a Mjolnir-wielding Captain America fight Thanos directly, but he overpowers them. Just as all seems lost, portals open, and all the resurrected heroes—led by Doctor Strange, the Guardians, Black Panther, and the armies of Wakanda, Asgard, and the Ravagers—arrive for the final battle. In the chaotic climax, Thanos seizes the Nano Gauntlet. Doctor Strange signals to Tony Stark that this is the “one” future out of 14,000,605 in which they win. Stark attacks Thanos, and in the struggle, secretly transfers the Infinity Stones to his own armor. As Thanos prepares to snap his fingers and remake the universe, he discovers the stones are gone. Tony, with the stones embedded in his suit and their cosmic energy overwhelming him, declares, “And I… am… Iron Man,” and snaps his fingers. Thanos and his entire army turn to dust. The battle is won, but the power of the stones is too much for Tony's mortal body, and he dies surrounded by his loved ones. The film concludes with Tony's funeral, Thor joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, and an elderly Steve Rogers appearing, having chosen to travel back in time to live a full life with Peggy Carter. He passes the shield and the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson.
The narrative structure of Avengers: Endgame is complex, spanning multiple time periods. Its plot can be broken down into distinct acts, each with critical turning points that define the story.
The “Time Heist” is the film's central narrative engine, a high-stakes, multi-layered operation fraught with complications.
The consequences of Endgame reshaped the entire MCU.
Endgame is fundamentally a character piece, serving as the final chapter for many of the MCU's most important figures.
Tony's arc comes full circle. The film finds him having achieved the one thing he always wanted: a peaceful, domestic life with Pepper Potts and their daughter, Morgan. He is deeply reluctant to risk this hard-won peace. His journey in the film is about reconciling his desire for a normal life with his innate, inescapable duty to be Iron Man. His initial refusal to help is rooted in the trauma of his first loss to Thanos. His final decision to solve time travel and join the heist is driven by his guilt and love for his protégé, Peter Parker. His sacrifice is the ultimate culmination of his journey from a selfish “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” to a selfless hero willing to lay down his life. His final line, “I am Iron Man,” directly mirrors his first, bookending the entire Infinity Saga.
Steve Rogers has always been defined by his sense of duty and his inability to stop fighting. He is a “man out of time” who has never known a life beyond conflict. The five years after the snap see him trying to help the world move on, but he himself cannot. The Time Heist offers him not only a chance to save the universe but also a chance to see Peggy Carter again. His final decision to return to the past and live out his life with her is his ultimate reward. For the first time, he chooses his own happiness over the call of duty, having finally found someone else (Sam Wilson) worthy of carrying the shield. His journey ends not in a blaze of glory, but in a quiet, well-deserved peace.
Endgame takes Thor to his lowest point. Crushed by the guilt of his failure to kill Thanos in Infinity War, he has become a shell of his former self, drowning his sorrows in alcohol and video games. His journey is one of rediscovering his self-worth. The conversation with his mother in Asgard and his ability to still wield Mjolnir are the catalysts for his recovery. In the end, he recognizes that he is not meant to be a king. By abdicating the throne of New Asgard to Valkyrie and joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, he sheds the burden of expectation and chooses to forge his own path for the first time, embracing who he is, not who he is “supposed to be.”
Natasha's arc has always been about atonement for her past as an assassin. After the snap, she becomes the emotional anchor of the fractured Avengers, the one who refuses to give up hope and holds the team together. Her desperation to fix things is what drives her. Her sacrifice on Vormir is the ultimate act of this atonement. She gives her life not just for the Soul Stone, but to save her best friend, Clint, ensuring he can return to the family she never had. She views her own life as expendable compared to the chance to bring everyone back, a final, selfless act that definitively proves her heroism and wipes her ledger clean.
The film presents the final stage of the Hulk/Banner conflict: resolution. In the five-year gap, Banner has managed to merge his own consciousness with the Hulk's body, achieving the best of both worlds: “Smart Hulk.” He has the brains and the brawn. This new form represents a man finally at peace with the two halves of his identity. This stability allows him to be the one to safely wield the Nano Gauntlet and perform the Blip, a feat requiring both immense strength to survive the gamma radiation and immense intelligence and precision to execute.
Clint's journey is the darkest of the original six. The loss of his family breaks him, transforming him from the hero Hawkeye into the merciless vigilante Ronin, who travels the world slaughtering criminals he deems unworthy of surviving the snap. He is a man consumed by grief and rage. Natasha's intervention pulls him back from the brink, offering him a sliver of hope. His willingness to sacrifice himself on Vormir is a manifestation of his death wish, but Natasha's refusal to let him do so forces him to live. His arc is completed when the Blip succeeds and he is reunited with his family, the very thing he fought to restore.
Endgame is a deep exploration of its core themes. Failure is the film's starting point; it examines how different heroes cope with the ultimate loss. Thor retreats, Steve soldiers on, Natasha obsesses, and Tony moves on. The entire plot is an attempt to rectify a past failure. Hope is the narrative's driving force, embodied by Scott Lang's miraculous return and the subsequent, impossibly audacious plan of the Time Heist. Finally, Sacrifice is the price of victory. The film argues that true heroism lies in what one is willing to give up. This is seen most profoundly in Natasha's life given for the Soul Stone and Tony's life given to defeat Thanos, but also in Steve's sacrifice of his present for a life in the past.
Avengers: Endgame was a cultural phenomenon of a scale rarely seen in cinema. It grossed over $2.798 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time upon its initial release. Its opening weekend alone grossed an unprecedented $1.2 billion. The film holds an approval rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics and audiences alike praising its emotional depth, satisfying conclusions for beloved characters, and the sheer spectacle of its final act. It is often cited not just as one of the best superhero films ever made, but as a major cinematic event that defined a generation of moviegoing. The fan-led social media campaign “#DontSpoilTheEndgame” became a global trend, highlighting the deep investment of the audience in the story's conclusion.
More than just a film, Endgame represents the successful execution of a revolutionary experiment in long-form, interconnected cinematic storytelling. It is the capstone of a 22-film saga, rewarding viewers who had followed the journeys of these characters for over a decade. The film is filled with callbacks, references, and emotional payoffs that rely on the audience's familiarity with the preceding movies. The “Portals” scene, in particular, is often celebrated as one of the most earned and emotionally resonant moments in film history, as it visually unites every disparate franchise of the MCU into a single, cohesive army.
The Time Heist in Endgame was explicitly designed to “clip all the branches” by returning the Infinity Stones. However, several actions taken by the team created significant new branches in the multiverse.
When the 2012-era Loki escaped with the Tesseract, he created a major divergent timeline. This variant, who had not experienced the character development of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, or Infinity War, was immediately apprehended by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), a bureaucratic organization existing outside of time and space. The entire plot of the Disney+ series Loki (TV series) follows this specific variant, whose actions lead to the death of He Who Remains and the subsequent fracturing of the “Sacred Timeline” into an uncontrollable multiverse, setting up the entire conflict of the MCU's Multiverse Saga.
When the 2014 versions of Thanos, Gamora, Nebula, and their entire army time-traveled to 2023, they permanently vacated their original timeline. This created a new branch reality where Thanos simply vanished in 2014. In this universe, Ronan the Accuser would have likely acquired the Power Stone without Thanos's interference, the events of Guardians of the Galaxy would have changed dramatically, and the Decimation would never have occurred. The fate of this timeline remains one of the largest unresolved consequences of the Time Heist.
Steve Rogers's decision to travel back to the 1940s to live with Peggy Carter is a point of frequent debate. The film's writers and directors have offered conflicting explanations. The writers suggest he created a new, separate timeline where he lived a quiet life. The directors have suggested he lived his life in the main timeline all along, in a closed time loop, meaning there were two Steve Rogerses present throughout the events of the MCU. The Disney+ series Loki later established that any such deviation would create a branch reality, lending more credence to the writers' explanation.