Samuel L. Jackson's 5 Best Marvel Movies, Ranked

The Avengers needs somebody who can stand in a room with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers (Evans), Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), and Clint (Jeremy Renner) and still feel like the person steering the mission. Jackson does that without forcing it. This is the movie that locks Nick Fury into MCU mythology because he walks in with authority, he weaponizes them, nudges them, lies when he has to, and keeps the larger objective in view while the team is still busy being a disaster.

And honestly, this is peak Fury as an architect. He’s assembling a response to an invasion, but he’s also assembling a team by reading weaknesses and pushing the right buttons. The Coulson death fallout is a perfect example: Fury understands emotion as strategy, and Jackson plays that ambiguity beautifully, you feel the grief, and you also feel the calculation. By the time New York is in full chaos, Fury’s role in the story is crystal clear. He isn’t the loudest person in the movie. He’s the one who made this movie possible.

Paranoia is the fuel here, and Fury fits this movie like he was built for it. The second The Winter Soldier starts tightening the screws, Fury becomes the human face of institutional rot: a man who knows the system is compromised, knows he may already be too late, and keeps moving anyway. His scenes have real urgency because he never panics. He plays calculation under pressure, and that makes every warning land harder.

Then the movie gives him one of his best MCU stretches, period. The assassination attempt sequence is brutal, smart, and insanely rewatchable because Jackson sells every beat, driving, improvising, surviving, making decisions in seconds while the world closes in. His dynamic with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) also gives the film moral friction: Fury is secrets and contingencies, Steve is principle and transparency, and both men have points. That tension gives Fury extra dimension.

Before the eyepatch, before the full legend, Captain Marvel gives you Fury with more room to be playful, and Jackson absolutely eats in that lane. Nick Fury is still sharp and suspicious here, but he’s also curious, amused, and weirdly delighted by how strange his week has suddenly become. Watching him bounce off Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is a huge part of the movie’s charm, because he brings veteran-agent instincts while she keeps blowing up his sense of what’s possible.

The reason this ranks so high is that it adds texture to Fury without breaking the character. You get the humor, the disbelief, the slow-building trust, and the sense that he’s watching the future of his entire worldview walk into the room. Jackson makes the buddy-energy work, then still lands the serious turns when the conspiracy gets clearer. It’s one of the few MCU entries where Fury gets to feel like a co-lead presence instead of a strategic cameo, and that makes the whole thing more fun. It’s a Nick Fury movie, without it being a direct Fury entry. Not to forget that Captain Marvel also lets you find out about why the cat is so important to him.

This one is such a fun Fury performance because the movie uses him like a pressure machine. In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is grieving, overwhelmed, and desperate for one normal school trip, and Fury has absolutely no interest in hearing any of that. Every scene between them has that great tension where Peter is still talking like a teenager and Fury is treating him like a field asset who needs to get it together immediately. It’s funny, but it also keeps the stakes high because Fury’s presence makes the mission feel real.

And then the movie gets extra mileage out of Fury by letting the authority itself become part of the trick. The Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) manipulation works in part because Peter wants adult certainty so badly, and Fury’s pushy, no-nonsense energy becomes part of the emotional pressure around him. Jackson plays the role with enough steel that when the post-credits reveal lands, it re-frames the whole vibe and gives Fury one of the MCU’s most enjoyable “of course he’s doing something bigger” exits.

When Age of Ultron gets messy, Fury is one of the reasons it still snaps back into place. Nick Fury shows up with that exact energy the movie needs at the exact moment it needs it: calm command, dry confidence, and zero patience for superhero self-pity. The Avengers are cracked open, Ultron is escalating, and Fury walks in like someone who has already skipped past the panic phase and gone straight to problem-solving.

What makes him so satisfying here is how he steadies the room without draining the tension. He gives the team direction, pushes them back toward purpose, and reminds them that saving the world still requires decisions, not just feelings. Jackson also gets that Fury humor in — sharp, clipped, slightly exasperated, which helps the movie breathe. He’s not the emotional center of Ultron, but he absolutely helps re-focus the story when it needs leadership with bite.