Avengers: Infinity War

This third Avengers film re-assembles almost the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe of wise-cracking gods, superhumans and space creatures, and manages to finally pay off the franchise’s long-gestating “infinity stones” storyline (basically, a purple alien wants to put jewels in a glove so that he can punch the world in half). If you care, you probably already know that this is the Avengers movie where many of your beloved characters meet their shocking ends. And they’re never ever coming back, no way, never gonna happen, even though many of the characters in Avengers: Infinity War have already returned from the dead, and Marvel has several thousand (or so) releases slated for 2019 alone, including an Infinity War sequel. Obviously, the mass death ending is a gigantic fakeout, just a launching pad for the next waves of Marvel product, but as a longtime detester of the MCU machine, I must admit that it brought me some joy.