With Deadpool & Wolverine uniting on the big screen, ComingSoon selects some of the best team-up movies to watch after the MCU mashup.
Sometimes, a problem can only be fixed by a good old-fashioned team-up. Even for the mightiest warriors, greatest thieves, and seasoned adventurers, there will be obstacles that require the skills of another, whether that be old friends, strangers brought together by circumstance, or just some folks who hate each other but must unite for a greater good.
So here are some of the best team-up movies to get into the team spirit.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang & The Nice Guys (2005/2016)
Shane Black wrote some of the 90s great team-ups with buddy cops action fare such as Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, but two of his unorthodox team-ups of this century are the best examples of the formula singing.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang brought together a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer with glorious back-and-forth banter. A criminal turned accidental actor and a detective acting as a consultant for the movie he’s starring in end up embroiled in a murder mystery.
In a different context, Black pulled off a similar trick over a decade later with The Nice Guys. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star as a fumbling private detecive and a grizzled enforcer for hire unite to solve a conspiracy in 70s Los Angeles.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
By the time Hot Fuzz came around, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were well established as a winning pair in Edgar Wright’s Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. Sio it was unsurprising that they shone in a homage to the buddy cop movie.
Supercop Nicholas Angel ends up serving the seemingly dull rural village of Sandford and is partnered with the idiotic manchild Danny Butterman. The quiet life doesn’t last, however, as a dark conspiracy lies at the heart of Sandford.
While Angel and Butterman’s central team-up is a joy to watch unfold, the finale really adds to it. It sees them join forces with the other local police officers who had been skeptical of the supposed conspiracy in Sandford to take down the corrupt officials.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
When a con is too big for just one con man, what could be better than assembling a superstar team that features George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Julia Roberts, and more?
That’s what Steven Soderbergh did in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack heist movie. The superteam conspires to rob three Las Vegas casinos of $150 million and ride off into the sunset.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The other ensemble to dominate the early 2000s. The highly-anticipated live-action adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings begins with one of cinema’s most iconic team-ups. The Fellowship of the Ring sees men, dwarves, elves, hobbits, and a wizard joining forces to rid the world of a great evil by chucking a powerful ring into a volcano.
The group’s journey shows the hardships of conflciting ideals uniting for a greater good, and every member leaves a meaningful impression by the story’s end.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Superhero movies are punctuated by team-ups, and there are plenty of good examples to choose from. However, the biggest example is undeniably the turning of the tide in Avengers: Endgame.
A group of heroes existing in their own corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe come together to undo the great terrible thing perpetrated by Thanos. Then, the biggest team-up to date brings every surviving hero together to take on Thanos and his forces in a final battle to settle everything.
Seven Samurai (1954)
The oft-copied epic by Akira Kurosawa is still a great example of strangers uniting to fight a common foe. You can feel its presence in plenty of films on this list in fact.
A lone samurai accepts a village’s request for protection from a group of bandits. The samurai then seeks out six others to help teach the villagers how to fight back. After two hours or so of setting up the pieces, the payoff brings it all together for an epic faceoff with the bandits.
Godzilla X Kong (2024)
I could have picked any number of Godzilla movies for this slot. But the team-up of the radioactive monster and the greatest of all apes towards the end of Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong is ridiculous but oh-so-satisfying.
Whatever the movie might do wrong, the begrudging joining of forces between the titanic rivals was always going to be fun. The addition of a third teammate in the climax makes it even sweeter as they unite to smash fresh foes.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Before I even saw Deadpool & Wolverine, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the movie it reminded me of the most in terms of dynamic.
A troubled, grizzled veteran is paired with a living cartoon character as they battle sinister forces from different worlds as meta winks and nods flow past your eyes. Could be describing either, right?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a hell of a benchmark to beat, though. Its live-action lunacy is still a treat to this day, and when compared to other hybrid efforts such as Space Jam, it’s in a class of its own.
