Every Superhero Movie Ranked by Woke Score (All Time)

The superhero genre has been Hollywood's biggest moneymaker for two decades, and it has also been one of the most contested ideological battlegrounds in modern film. At one end of the spectrum: The Incredibles, a film about a family that embraces its exceptionalism and rejects forced mediocrity, scored by VirtueVigil at +23 STRONGLY TRADITIONAL. At the other: Birds of Prey, a maximalist feminist manifesto about female rage and institutional destruction, scored at -18 WOKE. That 41-point gap tells you everything about what the genre has become.

VirtueVigil has now reviewed 52 superhero films using our dual-scoring system, which measures the density and intensity of both traditional values content and progressive ideological content independently. The scores below are not quality ratings. Many of the wokest films on this list are technically accomplished. Some of the most traditional are flawed. The score reflects ideology, not craft.

The list runs from most traditional at the top to most woke at the bottom. Every film links to its full VirtueVigil review with complete category breakdowns.

STRONGLY TRADITIONAL

#1 — The Incredibles (2004)

Woke Score: 1.4 • Traditional Score: 24.85 • Verdict: STRONGLY TRADITIONAL • Margin: +23 TRAD

Brad Bird's masterpiece is the most explicitly anti-egalitarian film Pixar ever made. "When everyone is super, no one will be." The Parr family's journey from forced mediocrity to celebrated exceptionalism is a direct rebuke of the progressive impulse to flatten individual achievement into collective sameness. A nuclear family unit is the hero. Conformity is the villain. The woke score of 1.4 is the lowest of any superhero film in our database.

#2 — Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Woke Score: 3.8 • Traditional Score: 26.88 • Verdict: STRONGLY TRADITIONAL • Margin: +23 TRAD

The MCU's foundational statement on American patriotism. Steve Rogers is a man of character before he is a man of power, and his transformation into Captain America affirms that virtue precedes strength. The film treats self-sacrifice, national loyalty, and duty without irony or qualification. Joe Johnston directed it as a genuine World War II adventure, not a deconstruction of one. The highest traditional score in the MCU.

#3 — Man of Steel (2013)

Woke Score: 4.4 • Traditional Score: 26.88 • Verdict: STRONGLY TRADITIONAL • Margin: +22 TRAD

Zack Snyder's Superman reboot grounds the Man of Steel in Messianic imagery and Midwestern values. Clark Kent's Kansas upbringing instills the moral framework that defines the character: sacrifice, responsibility, earned trust in authority. Jonathan Kent dies so his son can remain hidden, a tragedy rooted in the weight of parental protection. The film takes Superman's inherent traditionalism seriously rather than undercutting it. The highest traditional score in DC's film library.

#4 — Batman Begins (2005)

Woke Score: 5.53 • Traditional Score: 26.04 • Verdict: STRONGLY TRADITIONAL • Margin: +21 TRAD

Christopher Nolan's origin story frames justice, personal responsibility, and moral absolutes as the foundation of heroism. Bruce Wayne's training is grueling and earned. His refusal to kill is a principled line, not a bureaucratic rule. The villain's ideology is explicitly collectivist: destroy Gotham to purify it. Batman rejects that logic entirely. A film about a man who chooses to be defined by what he will not do, even when no one would blame him for doing it.

TRADITIONAL

#5 — Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Woke Score: 3.5 • Traditional Score: 22.05 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +19 TRAD

The MCU's most emotionally direct film in years. Peter Parker learns that power demands sacrifice and that personal loss cannot be undone by wishing it away. The three-Spider-Man reunion earns its sentiment because each version of the character has been defined by the cost of the mask. The film's emotional core is the death of May Parker and Peter's decision to bear that weight alone rather than compromise on doing what is right. Classic Spider-Man values, executed with rare sincerity.

#6 — Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

Woke Score: 5.8 • Traditional Score: 23.52 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +18 TRAD

Snyder's four-hour director's cut restores the mythic, operatic tone of his DC vision. Each hero's arc centers on sacrifice, redemption, and the willingness to die for something larger than the self. Barry Allen runs into the past to save the world. Victor Stone reconciles with his father. Superman's resurrection is framed as a second chance defined by what he chooses to do with it. The film's scale and ambition are matched by its genuine commitment to heroism as moral seriousness.

#7 — The Dark Knight (2008)

Woke Score: 3.5 • Traditional Score: 19.6 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +16 TRAD

The most critically acclaimed superhero film ever made earns its traditional score through its treatment of order, chaos, and civic sacrifice. Harvey Dent is Gotham's legitimate hero, and his fall is a tragedy about what happens when righteous men lose their moral anchor. Batman's choice to absorb the blame for Dent's crimes is a sacrifice of reputation in service of a larger social good. The Joker's nihilism is presented as evil, not liberation. Nolan treats institutional authority as worth defending even when its defenders are flawed.

#8 — The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2026)

Woke Score: 3.1 • Traditional Score: 19.04 • Verdict: PREDICTED: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +16 TRAD

The MCU's Fantastic Four relaunch centers the team as a family unit first and a superhero team second. Reed and Sue's marriage, their pregnancy, and the domestic stakes behind the cosmic adventure give the film an emotional framework grounded in traditional family formation. The lowest woke score of any 2026 superhero film reviewed, with a team dynamic built on loyalty, complementary strengths, and the belief that family is worth protecting above all else.

#9 — Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Woke Score: 5.82 • Traditional Score: 21.28 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +15 TRAD

James Gunn's original Guardians film builds a found family from misfits and gives that family genuine weight. Peter Quill's grief over his mother anchors every joke. The team's willingness to die for each other in the finale earns the emotional payoff. The film's progressive surface (a diverse ensemble, irreverent tone) is undercut by its deep commitment to self-sacrifice, earned loyalty, and the idea that belonging to something larger than yourself is the highest form of identity.

#10 — Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Woke Score: 2.0 • Traditional Score: 16.8 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +15 TRAD

The lowest woke score of any Avengers film in the database. Thanos's ideology is environmental collectivism taken to its logical endpoint: sacrifice half of all life for the survival of the whole. Every hero resists it. The film treats Thanos's utilitarian calculus as evil without ambiguity. Vision, Gamora, and countless unnamed trillions die. The heroes fail. The film ends in genuine tragedy with no consolation. A high traditional score in a film that refuses easy redemption.

#11 — Spider-Man: Web of Heroes (2026)

Woke Score: 6.8 • Traditional Score: 21.4 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +15 TRAD

The 2026 Spider-Man relaunch returns to the character's core values: responsibility, sacrifice, and the burden of power as a moral weight rather than a gift. Peter Parker's relationship with his mentors and his willingness to put others above himself drives the narrative. The film earns its traditional score by treating heroism as a choice made under cost rather than a performance of identity.

#12 — Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Woke Score: 11.0 • Traditional Score: 25.62 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +15 TRAD

The Russo brothers' conspiracy thriller treats institutional corruption as a genuine threat without abandoning the hero's belief in the institutions themselves. Steve Rogers does not conclude that America is evil because S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised. He fights to save the republic from the people who infiltrated it. The film's politics are conservative in the deepest sense: reform the corruption, preserve the ideal. The woke score of 11 reflects some progressive framing around surveillance and military power.

#13 — Avengers: Doomsday (2026)

Woke Score: 4.6 • Traditional Score: 18.4 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +14 TRAD

The MCU's multiverse saga culminates in a film that recaptures the ensemble heroism of the original Avengers era. The Russo brothers' return prioritizes sacrifice, team cohesion, and the weight of consequence over identity politics and representation metrics. With Robert Downey Jr. returning as Doctor Doom, the film's traditional core is anchored by a character whose arc has always been about the price of ambition without moral restraint.

#14 — The Batman (2022)

Woke Score: 8.0 • Traditional Score: 22.05 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +14 TRAD

Matt Reeves's noir Batman treats Gotham's corruption as systemic rot that requires personal moral courage to confront, not systemic reimagining. Bruce Wayne's arc moves from vengeance toward justice, a trajectory rooted in the idea that heroism is earned through suffering and redirected toward something larger than the self. The Riddler's populist grievance politics are framed as dangerous radicalism, not legitimate critique. Selina Kyle's moral ambiguity is treated as a character flaw to be examined, not celebrated.

#15 — Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

Woke Score: 3.5 • Traditional Score: 17.07 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +14 TRAD

The Venom trilogy concludes with its most emotionally direct entry. The bond between Eddie Brock and Venom is framed as genuine friendship, earned loyalty, and mutual sacrifice. The film closes with an act of selfless heroism that undercuts any reading of the symbiote as a metaphor for destructive exceptionalism. Tom Hardy's commitment to the character's comic sincerity carries what could have been pure spectacle into something with emotional stakes.

#16 — Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Woke Score: 3.85 • Traditional Score: 18.34 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +14 TRAD

Joss Whedon's second Avengers film is more interested in sacrifice and consequence than the first. Vision's creation is a theological argument about the relationship between power and moral responsibility. Quicksilver's death is not undone. Ultron's vision of a better world through destruction is treated as the logical endpoint of well-intentioned totalitarianism. The Hulk's farewell to Black Widow is a moment of genuine self-denial in service of protecting others. Underrated in the MCU canon.

#17 — Daredevil: Born Again (2025)

Woke Score: 5.8 • Traditional Score: 18.48 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +13 TRAD

The first season of the Disney+ Daredevil revival returns to the street-level Catholic guilt framework that made the Netflix original series so distinctive. Matt Murdock's faith is treated as a genuine moral anchor, not a quirk or a weakness. The legal system is presented as worth fighting for. Kingpin's corruption is civic evil, not systemic critique. Season 1 is the strongest traditional content the Marvel streaming universe has produced.

#18 — The Avengers (2012)

Woke Score: 4.5 • Traditional Score: 16.4 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +12 TRAD

The film that built the template for ensemble superhero cinema gets its traditional score from the concept of chosen sacrifice for collective defense. Every hero's arc in the finale is about giving up personal safety for others. "There's no throne. There's no version of this where you come out on top." Loki's divine right authoritarianism is the villain's ideology. The Avengers' voluntary cooperation is the counter. Whedon's politics are mixed, but this film's values framework is unambiguously traditional.

#19 — Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)

Woke Score: 5.9 • Traditional Score: 17.5 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +12 TRAD

The Shazam sequel is built around found family, earned sacrifice, and a foster care backstory that treats chosen family as a genuine moral good. Billy Batson's relationship with his foster siblings drives every action and stakes every decision. The film's willingness to kill its hero and then restore him through collective love is corny in the best sense: it believes in what it is saying. A rare DC film that earns its emotional resolution.

#20 — Invincible: Season 3 (2025)

Woke Score: 7.2 • Traditional Score: 18.34 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +11 TRAD

Robert Kirkman's animated series continues its engagement with what superhero power actually costs. Mark Grayson's moral development is tested by genuine failures and difficult choices with permanent consequences. The series treats violence, responsibility, and the weight of protecting others as serious moral territory rather than spectacle. Season 3 deepens the family dynamics and the ethical complexity that made the first two seasons stand out from the genre average.

#21 — Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Woke Score: 7.4 • Traditional Score: 17.99 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL • Margin: +11 TRAD

The post-Endgame Spider-Man film deals earnestly with grief, legacy, and the impossibility of filling someone else's shoes. Peter Parker does not want to be the next Iron Man, and the film treats that reluctance as the correct instinct. Mysterio's manipulation is a story about how much damage can be done by those who weaponize trust. The reveal that the crisis was manufactured by a man who felt wronged by Tony Stark is an argument about resentment, not institutional critique.

TRADITIONAL LEAN

#22 — Doctor Strange (2016)

Woke Score: 5.35 • Traditional Score: 14.0 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +9 TRAD

Scott Derrickson's origin film is a story about arrogance broken and rebuilt into humility. Stephen Strange's arc from brilliant but self-centered surgeon to selfless protector of reality is a traditional character transformation. The Ancient One's ambiguous morality (using forbidden power to fight forbidden power) is presented as a genuine ethical problem. The ending, in which Strange defeats the villain through self-sacrifice and inconvenience rather than violence, is the genre's most creative application of traditional values logic.

#23 — Iron Man (2008)

Woke Score: 5.0 • Traditional Score: 14.35 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +9 TRAD

The film that launched the MCU is a story about a weapons manufacturer who confronts the human cost of his industry and rebuilds himself around protecting the vulnerable rather than profiting from war. Tony Stark's arc is libertarian rather than progressive: individual responsibility, not institutional reform. The film trusts its hero's judgment and treats his personal transformation as sufficient. "I am Iron Man." No committee. No permission. Just accountability taken.

#24 — The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Woke Score: 9.98 • Traditional Score: 18.7 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +9 TRAD

An earlier cut of the MCU Fantastic Four project with a family-first narrative structure that treats Reed and Sue's marriage and their growing family as the central emotional stakes. The team dynamic is built on complementary strengths rather than individual identity assertion. A higher woke score than the 2026 entry reflects some progressive framing in supporting characters and institutional settings that was revised in later versions.

#25 — Wonder Woman (2017)

Woke Score: 5.15 • Traditional Score: 13.3 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +8 TRAD

Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman origin film earns its traditional lean through Diana's genuine moral idealism and her willingness to sacrifice for humanity even after she discovers humanity's capacity for evil. The film's feminist framing is present but not aggressive. Diana's compassion is her strength, not a corrective to male failure. The World War I setting grounds the stakes in historical weight. Significantly more traditional in values content than its sequel.

#26 — Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Woke Score: 9.96 • Traditional Score: 17.64 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +8 TRAD

The ideological debate at the center of Civil War is genuinely conservative: should superheroes answer to government oversight or individual conscience? Steve Rogers argues for conscience. Tony Stark argues for accountability. The film does not clearly side with either, but Rogers' position prevails by the end, which functions as a defense of individual moral judgment over institutional control. The woke score reflects progressive content in some character framings and the treatment of Zemo's grief as partially sympathetic.

#27 — Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

Woke Score: 6.3 • Traditional Score: 13.09 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +7 TRAD

The second entry in the 2026 Spider-Man run maintains the character's core values framework while introducing new supporting characters and expanded world-building. Peter's moral obligations to his community drive the narrative. The film's traditional lean is consistent with the series' commitment to sacrifice and responsibility as genuine moral categories rather than genre conventions.

#28 — Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Woke Score: 11.9 • Traditional Score: 18.76 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +7 TRAD

Taika Waititi's comedic Ragnarok deconstructs Thor's mythology while preserving its emotional core. Asgard is not the place, the people. Thor's willingness to let Asgard be destroyed to save its people is a sacrifice of material identity for relational belonging. The film's irreverence works against it ideologically in places: Hela's critique of Asgard's imperial history is given real weight and not fully rebutted. The traditional score is earned by sacrifice and family loyalty; the woke score reflects the colonial critique subplot.

#29 — Kraven the Hunter (2024)

Woke Score: 5.4 • Traditional Score: 11.2 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +6 TRAD

Sony's Kraven adaptation leans into the character's predatory code of honor and his rejection of civilizational comfort in favor of earned strength. Kraven's moral framework is primal rather than progressive: nature is honest, civilization corrupts. The father-son conflict is rooted in genuine betrayal and the desire to prove one's worth through action rather than inheritance. One of the stronger Sony Spider-Man universe entries despite low critical reception.

#30 — Black Adam (2022)

Woke Score: 7.68 • Traditional Score: 13.02 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +5 TRAD

Dwayne Johnson's passion project is a story about liberation through force. Black Adam kills his oppressors without remorse, and the film presents that violence as righteous rather than troubling. The anti-imperialist framing has both traditional and progressive readings: the colonizer framing is progressive, the valorization of violent masculine justice is traditional. The traditional lean reflects the film's ultimate treatment of power as personal responsibility rather than systemic redistribution.

#31 — Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Woke Score: 10.14 • Traditional Score: 14.28 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +4 TRAD

Snyder's operatic superhero clash is a meditation on the burden of absolute power and the question of who watches the watchmen. Both heroes are defined by what they refuse to do. Superman's restraint is his moral identity; Batman's rage is his corruption. The film's traditional score comes from its treatment of sacrifice, duty, and the weight of being something that others cannot be. Its woke score reflects Lex Luthor's liberal intellectual framing and some progressive subtext in the Senate hearing scenes.

#32 — Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Woke Score: 10.54 • Traditional Score: 13.65 • Verdict: TRADITIONAL LEAN • Margin: +3 TRAD

The MCU's conclusion earns its emotional payoff through genuine sacrifice: Natasha Romanoff dies for the Soul Stone. Tony Stark dies to undo Thanos. Steve Rogers chooses to live his life and come home. The film's traditional lean is narrow because the "A-Force" female hero moment and several other progressive insertions push the woke score up. The core story, however, is about personal responsibility carried to its ultimate cost. Tony Stark's final act redeems his entire arc.

MIXED

#33 — Deadpool (2016)

Woke Score: 7.84 • Traditional Score: 9.8 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: +2 TRAD

Ryan Reynolds's R-rated antihero origin film is ideologically incoherent in the best way. Deadpool's offensive humor mocks progressive sensibilities as readily as traditional ones. The love story at the film's center is sincere and conventionally romantic. The violence is cathartic and unapologetic. The fourth-wall breaks deflect any reading that takes the film's values seriously, which is the point. Mixed score reflects a film that opts out of the genre's ideological discourse entirely.

#34 — Thunderbolts* (2025)

Woke Score: 11.08 • Traditional Score: 12.94 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: +2 TRAD

Marvel's antihero team film is a story about people defined by their failures finding purpose in collective action. The team dynamic has traditional resonance: loyalty, earned trust, sacrifice for each other. The progressive content centers on mental health framing and a villain whose grievance politics are partially validated. The narrow margin reflects a film genuinely split between its traditional emotional core and its progressive therapeutic framing of trauma and identity.

#35 — Deadpool 2 (2018)

Woke Score: 8.55 • Traditional Score: 10.14 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: +2 TRAD

The sequel deepens Deadpool's emotional stakes with genuine grief while maintaining the franchise's ideological deflection strategy. Cable's time-travel arc is built on parental sacrifice. Deadpool's desire to protect Russell is rooted in recognizing his own origin story. The woke score increases slightly from the original due to the X-Force sequence's diversity-as-spectacle framing and the progressive politics surrounding the mutant school setting.

#36 — The Flash (2023)

Woke Score: 9.8 • Traditional Score: 11.48 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: +2 TRAD

Andy Muschietti's time-travel adventure is a story about the cost of trying to fix the past. Barry Allen learns that changing events to spare himself grief creates greater suffering downstream. The film's traditional message, that some losses must be accepted, is undermined by the chaotic multiverse framing and the progressive identity coding around the alternate universe's power dynamics. The Batman Keaton sequences earn their emotional resonance. The rest is a mixed bag.

#37 — Deadpool 3 (2026)

Woke Score: 9.4 • Traditional Score: 10.6 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: +1 TRAD

Deadpool and Wolverine's first MCU team-up maintains the franchise's ideological ambivalence while introducing Hugh Jackman's reluctant Wolverine as a traditional counterweight to Deadpool's chaos. Logan's arc is built on reluctant heroism and sacrificial purpose. The film's woke score reflects progressive content in the TVA world-building and some supporting character framing. The emotional climax earns its traditional resonance through Wolverine's sacrifice.

#38 — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Woke Score: 12.59 • Traditional Score: 10.64 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: -2 WOKE

The visually stunning sequel to Into the Spider-Verse earns its WOKE LEAN in this marginal assessment. Miles Morales's arc is built on rebellion against predetermined fate, which cuts both ways ideologically. The film's progressive content comes from the multiverse's treatment of identity as self-determined rather than inherited, and from the explicit framing of the Spider-Man Society's "canon events" doctrine as authoritarian control. The traditional content comes from Miles's genuine love for his family and his father's protective instincts.

#39 — Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Woke Score: 18.18 • Traditional Score: 16.3 • Verdict: MIXED • Margin: -2 WOKE

The Wonder Woman sequel collapses under the weight of its central conceit: that humanity's greatest flaw is wanting more than we deserve. The Dreamstone villain is an anti-capitalist metaphor. Barbara Minerva's transformation into Cheetah is a parable about the danger of female ambition. Diana's decision to give up Steve Trevor is framed as renunciation of personal desire for the greater good. The film is confused about which set of values it is endorsing, and that confusion shows in the nearly equal scores.

WOKE LEAN

#40 — Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Woke Score: 8.0 • Traditional Score: 5.0 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -3 WOKE

The MCU's fourth Captain America film reduces the character's ideological clarity to a surface sheen. Sam Wilson's Cap is defined more by his racial identity and political symbolism than by the moral framework that made Steve Rogers compelling. The government conspiracy plot is progressive in its framing: institutional authority as inherently untrustworthy. The traditional score is nearly erased by a film that treats the Captain America mythology as a vehicle for contemporary racial politics rather than American ideals broadly held.

#41 — Madame Web (2024)

Woke Score: 13.42 • Traditional Score: 9.15 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -4 WOKE

Sony's Madame Web is a female-centered origin story that stumbles across the progressive content markers without any of the craft that might make them land. The protagonist's power is clairvoyance, and the film uses it to position her as a protector of other women against a male villain. The film's failure at the box office ($43 million domestic on a $80 million budget) suggests that female empowerment framing without strong storytelling does not move tickets.

#42 — Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Woke Score: 14.57 • Traditional Score: 10.67 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -4 WOKE

The third Ant-Man film introduces Kang the Conqueror through a Quantum Realm adventure that sidelines Scott Lang in favor of his daughter Cassie's political awakening. Cassie's arc is explicitly activist: she was jailed for protesting, and the film presents her radicalism as correct judgment. The traditional content comes from Scott's protective fatherhood. The family dynamics are undercut by Cassie's positioning as the character with superior moral clarity despite being less experienced and more reckless.

#43 — Supergirl (2026)

Woke Score: 12.92 • Traditional Score: 8.26 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -5 WOKE

The DCU's Supergirl film positions Kara as a character defined by trauma, isolation, and mistrust of authority. The film's progressive content centers on institutional critique and female exceptionalism framing. The lack of a traditional mentor figure who earns genuine respect weakens the traditional score. A character who could carry enormous traditional values weight given the Superman legacy instead becomes a vehicle for contemporary identity politics dressed in Kryptonian iconography.

#44 — Blue Beetle (2023)

Woke Score: 15.08 • Traditional Score: 8.75 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -6 WOKE

Blue Beetle uses a Latino family structure to anchor its origin story, which should earn traditional family content. The family is loving, multigenerational, and portrayed with genuine warmth. What undercuts the traditional score is the film's framing of American corporate and military institutions as inherently predatory toward immigrant communities. The Kord Industries villain is a stand-in for capitalist exploitation. The family's traditional values exist in explicit tension with their experience of American institutions, which the film presents as the correct framework for understanding that tension.

#45 — Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Woke Score: 18.42 • Traditional Score: 12.67 • Verdict: WOKE LEAN • Margin: -6 WOKE

Ryan Coogler's Wakanda Forever carries genuine grief for Chadwick Boseman while building its narrative around female succession and the reframing of Wakanda's isolationism as a response to colonial exploitation. The film's progressive content is embedded in its world-building: the introduction of Namor as an Aztec-coded anti-colonial warrior whose grievances against surface-dwellers are presented as historically justified. Shuri's arc is female empowerment and rage-as-strength. The traditional score comes from genuine mourning and family duty; the woke score reflects the film's colonial critique framework.

WOKE

#46 — Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (2026)

Woke Score: 25.9 • Traditional Score: 14.28 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -12 WOKE

Season 2 of the Daredevil revival abandons much of what made Season 1 distinctive. The Catholic moral framework is diluted. The street-level focus gives way to institutional politics. Progressive identity content increases substantially across supporting character arcs and the series' treatment of systemic justice versus individual moral culpability. A 37-point drop from Season 1's traditional score to Season 2 is the starkest ideological drift between seasons of any series in the VirtueVigil database.

#47 — The Boys: Season 4 (2024)

Woke Score: 19.74 • Traditional Score: 8.05 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -12 WOKE

Eric Kripke's superhero deconstruction series is explicitly designed as a critique of right-wing politics, corporate power, and Christian nationalism. Homelander is a MAGA stand-in. Vought is Big Pharma meets Fox News. The show's progressive politics are not subtext. Kripke has said publicly that the series is a direct response to Trump-era conservatism. Season 4 escalates that framing with fascist rally imagery and the explicit alignment of superhero fandom with authoritarian populism. Technically accomplished. Ideologically aggressive.

#48 — Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)

Woke Score: 31.2 • Traditional Score: 18.9 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -12 WOKE

The highest woke score of any Aquaman film, driven primarily by a climate change messaging throughline that positions industrialization and fossil fuel extraction as existential threats to Atlantis. The villain's plan involves releasing ancient CO2 deposits to heat the ocean. The film is earnest in its environmental messaging and unapologetic about it. The traditional score is elevated by Aquaman's father-son dynamics and family protection arc, which prevents it from tipping into STRONGLY WOKE territory.

#49 — Eternals (2021)

Woke Score: 19.74 • Traditional Score: 5.95 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -14 WOKE

Chloe Zhao's MCU film is the most artistically ambitious and ideologically dense in the studio's catalog. The ensemble cast is constructed as a diversity checklist: gay characters, deaf characters, characters of every ethnicity, a female lead. The film's central argument is that humanity deserves to survive not because of its virtues but because of its capacity for beauty and connection. That framing is progressive in its rejection of merit-based value. The Celestials' utilitarian calculus is the villain's logic, but the rebuttal is emotional rather than moral. Critically polarizing; audience rejection was significant.

#50 — The Marvels (2023)

Woke Score: 22.95 • Traditional Score: 8.87 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -14 WOKE

The MCU's lowest-grossing domestic release ever ($46 million) centered on three female heroes whose power dynamics and interpersonal conflicts drove the film. The male characters are either absent, comic relief, or defeated. Carol Danvers's leadership is unquestioned. The film's progressive content is embedded in its premise: three women saving the universe while the men in their lives serve supporting roles. The audience verdict at the box office was the most direct rejection of the representation-first superhero formula the MCU has produced.

#51 — Captain Marvel (2019)

Woke Score: 19.44 • Traditional Score: 3.25 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -16 WOKE

Carol Danvers's origin film is built around female rage as the path to power. The film's central lesson is that Carol's restraint, programmed into her by male authority figures, is the real enemy. Full power comes from rejecting the demand that she prove herself by male standards. Nick Fury is reduced to a sidekick. Every male figure who questions Carol is wrong. The film's critics were review-bombed in both directions, making it one of the most contested superhero releases in the database. The lowest traditional score of any WOKE-rated superhero film.

#52 — Birds of Prey (2020)

Woke Score: 23.34 • Traditional Score: 5.05 • Verdict: WOKE • Margin: -18 WOKE

The most woke superhero film in the VirtueVigil database. Harley Quinn's emancipation from the Joker is framed as feminist liberation, and the film's climax is built around women destroying institutional male power. Every male character is either abusive, cowardly, or ineffectual. The Birds of Prey team assembles around a shared experience of male victimization. The film's irreverent, chaotic tone does not soften the ideological thesis. Cathy Yan directed a genuine manifesto that flopped at the box office ($33 million domestic opening weekend, disappointing against a $84 million budget).

Methodology Note

All 52 films were scored using the VirtueVigil Woke Score system, which measures the density and intensity of progressive ideological content across categories including gender politics, religious critique, racial messaging, sexual content framing, and institutional critique. Traditional scores measure the density of traditional values content including family loyalty, sacrifice, earned authority, religious affirmation, and civic duty. Both scores are independent; a high traditional score and a high woke score can coexist in the same film. The margin (traditional score minus woke score) determines the verdict category.

Rankings run from most traditional (highest positive margin) to most woke (highest negative margin). Films with the same verdict tier are ordered by margin size. For complete scoring breakdowns, visit each film's individual review page.