What changed while you were away, in the order you should meet it, for somebody who stopped in 2019 and has heard the shape of it since.
Most people who stopped, stopped there, and it was a reasonable place to stop. The story that had been building for eleven years finished. What has happened since is not more of the same, and knowing how it is different is most of what you need.
Three things changed at once
Television became the story. Before 2021 the series were a parallel track you could ignore. From WandaVision onward they carry plot the films then assume. This is the single biggest change and the most common reason a returning viewer feels lost in a film.
The single timeline became several. Loki ends by removing the thing that kept history to one line. Everything after that operates under different rules, and a large part of the appeal since has been characters from other studios’ films arriving as versions from elsewhere.
The cast turned over. The two people the first saga was about are gone. What replaced them is a wider, looser ensemble that has not yet been pulled into one shape, and opinion on that is genuinely divided.
The short way back in
Four entries, in this order, and you are current on the rules:
WandaVision, because the film that follows it assumes all of it. Loki, both seasons, because it is where the multiverse arrives. Spider-Man: No Way Home, because it is the first film that uses the new rules. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, because it is the consequence of the first two.
After that, the paths on this site will take you the rest of the way, and the timeline’s second control will keep the list to a size you can actually watch.
Show detailsWhat you have not missed
Quite a lot, and this catalogue will not pretend otherwise. Several entries between 2021 and 2025 are self-contained and require nothing, which means you can pick them up at any point or never.
The pages for those say so on their own, which is the point of them saying it rather than a guide trying to rank them.