How to Watch Patrick Stewart's Professor X Before His Last Appearance

CrossBinge · 4 min read

Before superhero films were the whole business, Patrick Stewart rolled into X-Men in 2000 and made a mutant telepath in a wheelchair sound like the wisest man alive. He played Charles Xavier in eight films over 22 years, counting two cameos and one trip to another universe. Marvel announced in 2025 that he would return in Avengers: Doomsday, which is scheduled to open on December 18, so a final Stewart performance as Xavier is still to come.

That makes now the moment to go back. The films do not need to be watched in release order, and honestly, a couple do not need to be watched at all. Here is how we would do it.

X-Men (2000)

Stewart and Ian McKellen as old friends on opposite sides. Short, lean, and the template for everything after.

X2 (2003)

The best of the original trilogy. Xavier spends much of it captured, which only makes his scenes with Magneto sharper.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Messy and rushed, but it contains a key Xavier moment you need for what follows. Watch it once.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Stewart's older Xavier shares the story with James McAvoy's younger one. The film that ties both casts together.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

An alternate-universe Xavier, a brief and strange curiosity. Optional, but it is how he brought the character into the Marvel films.

Logan (2017)

Last on purpose. Stewart's bravest performance as Xavier, an old man failing, frightened and still kind. Whatever December brings, this is the goodbye.

What to skip, and why Logan goes last

X-Men Origins: Wolverine has a short, digitally de-aged Stewart cameo, and The Wolverine saves him for a mid-credits scene that sets up Days of Future Past. Completists will want both; everyone else can skip them. We have put Logan at the end even though it came out before the Doctor Strange film, because it is the real farewell. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine looks after a Xavier who can no longer look after himself, and watching it this week, knowing how Stewart's own life ended, is hard. It is also the best film in the run.

Watch the six, in this order, before Doomsday arrives. Whatever December brings, when the credits roll on Logan, let that be the moment you say goodbye.

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