| Director | Matthew Vaughn |
|---|---|
| Budget | $160 million |
| Box office | $353 million |
In 1944, at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Nazi officer Klaus Schmidt witnesses a young Erik Lehnsherr bending a metal gate with his mind upon being separated from his parents. Schmidt brings Lehnsherr into his office and tells him to move a Nazi-decorated coin on his desk. When Lehnsherr cannot do it, Schmidt kills his mother. Distraught, Lehnsherr's magnetic power manifests, destroying the room. Meanwhile, at a mansion in Westchester County, New York, young telepath Charles Xavier meets Raven, a scaly blue-skinned shapeshifter. He invites her to live with him as his sister.
In 1962, Lehnsherr tracks Schmidt while Xavier earns his doctorate from the University of Oxford. In Las Vegas, CIA officer Moira MacTaggert follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where Hendry meets with Schmidt (now called Sebastian Shaw), mutant telepath Emma Frost, cyclone-producing Riptide, and teleporter Azazel. Threatened by Shaw and teleported to the Joint War Room, Hendry advocates deploying nuclear missiles in Turkey. Shaw, an energy-absorbing mutant whose powers have kept him young, later kills Hendry.
MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they convince Director McCone that mutants exist and that Shaw is a threat. Another CIA officer sponsors the mutants and invites them to the secret "Division X" facility. MacTaggert and Xavier find Shaw as Lehnsherr attacks him, and Xavier rescues Lehnsherr from drowning before Shaw escapes. Xavier brings Lehnsherr to Division X, where they meet Hank McCoy, a mutant scientist with prehensile feet. Xavier uses McCoy's mutant-locating device, Cerebro, to seek and recruit other mutants; Angel Salvadore, Armando Muñoz, Alex Summers, and Sean Cassidy.
Xavier, Lehnsherr, and MacTaggert lead a CIA mission to the Soviet Union to capture Shaw; they instead learn from Frost that Shaw intends to start World War III, triggering mutant ascendency. Azazel, Riptide, and Shaw attack Division X, killing everyone but the mutants, whom Shaw invites to join him. Angel accepts, but when Alex and Armando retaliate, Shaw kills the latter. In Moscow, Shaw compels the generals to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba. Wearing a helmet that blocks telepathy, Shaw follows the Soviet fleet in a submarine to ensure the missiles break a U.S. blockade. In the meantime, Xavier takes the remaining recruits back to his mansion, where they focus on harnessing their abilities. McCoy believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance and manages to manufacture one, but Raven, having been persuaded by Lehnsherr, decides she does not want to hide her identity and refuses the cure. McCoy uses it on himself, but it backfires, giving him blue fur and a leonine appearance.
With McCoy piloting, the mutants and MacTaggert fly to the blockade line. Xavier uses telepathy to make a Soviet sailor destroy the missile ship, while Lehnsherr uses his magnetic powers to lift Shaw's submarine onto land. Lehnsherr grabs Shaw's helmet in battle, allowing Xavier to immobilize him. However, Lehnsherr reveals that he shares Shaw's exclusivist view of mutants but wants revenge for his mother's death. While Shaw is still immobilized, Lehnsherr kills him by slowly forcing the Nazi-decorated coin through his head.
Both fleets fire at the mutants out of fear, but Lehnsherr halts the barrage. As he redirects the fired munitions, intending to destroy the fleets, MacTaggert attempts to shoot him; one of the bullets he deflects hits Xavier's spine. Distracted by Xavier's injury, Lehnsherr lets the artillery fall into the ocean. Xavier and Lehnsherr part ways over their differing views on mutants and humans, and Lehnsherr leaves with Angel, Azazel, Riptide, and Raven. Later, a wheelchair-using Xavier returns to the mansion with his mutants to open a school. MacTaggert promises to keep Xavier's location secret, but he wipes her memories to ensure it. Meanwhile, Lehnsherr, now going by the name of Magneto and leading the Hellfire Club, frees Frost from prison.