How to Watch James Gunn's DCU In Order
Get up to date with James Gunn's ever-expanding universe with our handy guide to the DCU.
Gunn’s DC universe is set to move to another level with the release of Clayface in October, a genuine horror movie that will be swiftly followed by the Superman sequel (and likely team-up movie), Man of Tomorrow, next year.
So far, the storytelling has been totally linear, so the best way to watch the James Gunn DCU is by the order of the release dates. Just make sure to add The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 (both originally made as part of Zack Snyder's DCEU) if you want the full background for John Cena's violent yet lovable antihero.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Peacemaker Season 1 (2022)
Superman (2025)
Peacemaker Season 2 (2025)
Supergirl (2026)
Lanterns (2026)
Clayface (2026)
Man of Tomorrow (2027)
When Gunn was made to take an unfortunate MCU sabbatical back in 2018, few at that time would have guessed that it would lead to him essentially becoming Marvel Studios' direct rival as the creative director of a newly relaunched DCU. The road to get there was a little bumpy, of course, with Gunn first coming on board to create the excellent 2021 reboot of The Suicide Squad and the spinoff series Peacemaker, before returning to make the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie and then bouncing back again.
Since then, it’s been all systems go, with two movies and two TV shows already in the bag since last July — and mostly to the liking of fans, audiences and critics. In the list below, you’ll find a little more info on each DCU movie and series so far, from Superman on, with two more to look out for in the next year or so.
Having laid the aesthetic and tonal groundwork with The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1, James Gunn kicked off his DCU with the summer 2025 release of Superman — which turned out to be the most colourful, entertaining, and endearingly earnest movie to feature the Man of Steel since the glory days of Cristopher Reeve.
After more than a decade of Zack Snyder’s stylish but solemn DCEU movies (which included Man of Steel and Justice League), Gunn's version of Superman felt refreshingly light on its feet: a movie that began in media res, doing away with all the Krypton back story (at least for now), and threw the audience directly into the mix.
This first outing also somehow found room for Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl while boasting great central performances from David Corenswet (as Clark Kent), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luther) and Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), with Gunn proving once again his remarkable ability to introduce and juggle a wide range of eccentric characters within the confines of an already chaotic superhero movie.
It might have taken a little pinch of salt (and a little post-production movie magic) to bring Peacemaker Season 1 from the DCEU into the DCU, but having done such good work turning John Cena's Chris Smith from villain into anti-hero, basically everyone watching was more than happy to give Gunn the benefit of the doubt.
That trust in the DCU process was rewarded with an excellent second season of the show in 2025, in which Chris gets to explore what life would have been like had his brother (David Denman) not died.
This intriguing, multi-versal setup (without giving too much away) paved the way for a great TV twist that probably owed about as much to Gunn’s bravura writing style as it did to It’s a Wonderful Life.
After her raucous introduction at the end of Superman, Millie Alcock’s Kara Zor-El got her own solo outing with 2026’s Supergirl — an entertaining movie that struggled quite a bit at the box-office.
A lot of this was down to the movie’s derivative (the Fury Road lifts are particularly glaring) and ungrounded vibe. The majority of the story takes place on forgettable planets, with Metropolis and Krypton only appearing in flashbacks — which are, awkwardly, also the best scenes.
On the plus side, the movie features an always welcome turn from David Krumholtz as her father, Zor-El, and the Corenswet appearances offer plenty of reasons to look forward to these two characters’ future team-ups.
In terms of DC movies, we’ve seen worse. We’ve also seen much better.
Is it too soon to say that Lanterns, a Damon Lindelof-scripted limited series, is the best thing the DCU has put out so far? With two episodes still to go (at time of writing), it's certainly worth considering.
Channeling the gritty crime aesthetic and timeline jumping antics of the first season of True Detective, Lindelof’s latest TV gem has been delivering on a weekly basis ever since the pilot aired — offering another reminder, in case one was needed, of Lindelof’s incredible abilities in this format and genre (think Watchmen).
Aaron Pierre stars as John Stewart, a future Lantern who has to patiently wait for the relatively feckless Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) to pass on the ring whenever he decides that Stewart is ready to take on the challenge.
The next DCU title to hit cinemas is Clayface and it looks like a whole different ball game to what we've seen from the franchise so far — and I mean that in the best way possible.
The movie — which stars Tom Rhys Harries as a struggling actor who turns into the shape-shifting entity — is directed by James Watkins (of Speak no Evil fame), who appears to be doing something that the MCU could never quite pull off: deliver a movie within the confines of a superhero universe that is also a proper, straight-up horror.
In the comics, the character started out as one of Batman’s key villains, which might mean that a first hint of a DCU version of the Caped Crusader could be in store here.
All will be revealed this October.
With the MCU taking a 12-month break between Doomsday and Secret Wars, Gunn’s Superman follow-up, Man of Tomorrow, is already looking set to be the biggest superhero movie of summer 2027.
The plot will apparently see Clark and Lex Luthor team up to take on a new foe called Brainiac (Lars Eidinger), likely with the help of Supergirl, John Stewart and some familiar faces from Gunn’s Superman.
The question we’ll be asking ourselves until then is, who else will be joining them?
