Two mutants, Rogue and Wolverine, come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.
Acting
Stewart and McKellen elevate every scene they're in.
Direction
Singer grounded superheroics in real-world paranoia.
Production
That black leather look defined superhero aesthetics for years.
Director
Bryan Singer
Hugh Jackman
Logan / Wolverine
Patrick Stewart
Xavier
Ian McKellen
Magneto
Famke Janssen
Jean Grey
James Marsden
Cyclops
Halle Berry
Storm
Anna Paquin
Rogue
Tyler Mane
Sabretooth
Ray Park
Toad
Rebecca Romijn
Mystique
Bruce Davison
Senator Kelly
Matthew Sharp
Henry Guyrich
Brett Morris
Young Magneto
Rhona Shekter
Magneto's Mother
Kenneth McGregor
Magneto's Father
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hugh Jackman was a last-minute replacement, cast three weeks into filming when Dougray Scott injured himself on Mission: Impossible 2.
The film's 'Mutant Registration Act' was deliberately written as an AIDS crisis allegory, with Singer drawing from his own experience as a gay man in the 1980s.
US
