Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier

It's exceedingly rare when a sequel is vastly superior to the original movie, but this one has managed it (although in part because I really didn't think much of the first one).

I think it's mostly because 1) the overall topic is more relevant to today's society, 2) Natasha & Sam are OMG SO MUCH BETTER THAN PEGGY CARTER, and 3) Hydra v.2 is more interesting than Hydra v.1.

The Winter Soldier actually...doesn't figure too much into my perception of the movie, despite the fact that his moniker is right in the title. I mean Sebastian Stan is cute & the character design of Bucky is definitely my cup of tea, but aside from the very last 5 minutes of the movie, one could substitute the Winter Soldier with any random Super Assassin and it wouldn't have affected the plot progression at all. There was a point when I was startled to see Bucky on the screen...because I'd forgotten his plotline.

And Natasha—oh yes, Natasha. I loved loved LOVED all her scenes in this movie. Plus, the way she flirted with Cap was just so...perfect. Sign me up for Steve/Natasha! (....but why are the first 2 pages of this ship's AO3 collection filled with E or at least M-rated fics? I'm really looking for more subtle, UST-kind of stuff.) When you add Bucky into the mix—and youhave to, given his history with Steve plus his canon (the Marvel version of canon, at least) status as the Black Widow's boyfriend—you pretty much have on your hands a OT3. I rarely do OT3s, but this might be as close as I'm ever going to get to a true OT3.

Now the question becomes, how to wade through the fics out there....