Avengers: Endgame (2019)

3 weeks after "the snap", Captain Marvel rescues Tony and Nebula - they all return to earth, Nebula reveals where Thanos is, and they go there to challenge him. They discover he destroyed the stones, using the power of the stones themselves, nearly killing himself in the process. In a rage Thor decapitates him.

Cut to five years later. The Avengers are still putting out metaphorical fires, but everyone's struggling with what they lost. Scott Lang's quantum tunnel van is now in storage - a rat accidentally reactivates it, firing him out into the present day, whereas only 5 hours has passed for him. He realises that the quantum realm might be the key to reversing what has happened.

With the help of Tony and Banner, who's now managed to combine both aspects of himself into "Professor Hulk", they work out a way to navigate the quantum realm, realising they can retrieve the stones from times in the past, bring them to the present, use them to reverse the snap, and then return them.

Splitting into teams, they revisit the Battle of New York from The Avengers, taking the scepter, but losing the tesseract to Loki. Taking a gamble, rather than come home empty handed, they go to 1970's New Jersey and steal the tesseract from then instead. Tony gets to meet his father, and Cap sees Peggy from afar. Bruce goes to Bleeker Street and meets the Ancient One, persuading her to give him the time stone.

Nebula and War Machine retrieve the power stone, but Nebula being in the same time period as her past self causes crossed wires. Past Thanos realises what's happened, sees her memories, and abducts her, replacing her with "his" Nebula, who's still evil.

Thor and Rocket return to Asgard - Thor meets his mother for a final farewell, and they retrieve the aether.

Hawkeye and Black Widow go after the soul stone. Upon learning it requires one of them to sacrifice themselves, they both argue about who it should be, both believing they should be the one to die. Hawkeye jumps, but Natasha catches him, ending up dangling beneath him and she forces him to let her fall to her death.

Coming back home, they put the stones into a new gauntlet - Bruce is the only one who can handle it, and snaps, bringing everyone back who was previously dusted, albeit 5 years later than when they originally disappeared. But Nebula has opened the portal and allowed Thanos through from the past.

He brings his army to earth but all the dusted Avengers are back, and their supporting armies. Both sides try to get the gauntlet - Captain Marvel arrives, destroys Thanos' ship, and nearly beats him, but he knocks her away using the power stone. Tony attacks Thanos, taking the stones out of the gauntlet and integrating them into his suit. Declaring "I'm Iron Man" he snaps his fingers, turning Thanos and his army to dust, but fatally injuring himself in the process, unable to handle the combined power of the stones.

He gets a hero's funeral, attended by all of the surviving Avengers. Captain America goes back in time to return the stones to the point they were taken, ensuring no negative realities splinter off. We see Banner trying to bring him back, but he realises that Cap deliberately missed his chronological "exit" to come back to the present day. Bucky looks up and sees Cap sitting on a nearby bench, now a very old man - turns out he went back to the past and married Peggy. The film ends on a shot of them at home in the past, finally getting their long-awaited dance.

Jon Sandys ★