Infinity Stones: All Six Names, Powers and Owners in the MCU

The Space Stone is the Tesseract, the glowing cube that opens a way through space, and it appears on screen as far back as 1942. In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), directed by Joe Johnston, Hydra leader Johann Schmidt takes it from a church in occupied Norway and plans to use its power to attack major cities. When Schmidt grabs it, its energy consumes him and he vanishes, and Steve Rogers crashes the Hydra bomber into the Arctic.

The cube resurfaces in the post credit scene of Thor (2011), where Nick Fury shows Erik Selvig a mysterious glowing cube while Loki, unseen, pushes Selvig's mind to agree to help. In The Avengers (2012), directed by Joss Whedon, Loki steals it from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, and a machine built by Selvig uses it to open a portal over Stark Tower so the Chitauri can invade New York. Thor then takes Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard.

Captain Marvel (2019), directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, goes back to 1995, where the Tesseract sits in Dr. Wendy Lawson's hidden lab in orbit. Goose, who turns out to be an alien Flerken, swallows it, and the post credit scene has Goose cough it up on Fury's desk. In Infinity War, Thanos takes the Space Stone from Loki aboard the Asgardian ship.

The Mind Stone is the gem inside Loki's scepter, and by Avengers: Infinity War it sits in Vision's head. In The Avengers (2012) the scepter lets Loki take control of Erik Selvig and Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanoff later uses it to close the portal over New York. The mid credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, shows Baron von Strucker and Hydra scientists studying a glowing scepter alongside two test subjects with superhuman powers, one fast and one telekinetic.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), directed by Joss Whedon, picks that thread up. The Avengers raid a Hydra base in Sokovia and recover the scepter, and Tony Stark and Bruce Banner find an artificial intelligence inside its gem. Their experiment wakes Ultron, and the synthetic body the team seizes from him becomes Vision when Stark and Banner upload J.A.R.V.I.S. into it.

In Infinity War, Thanos's lieutenants go after the Mind Stone in Vision's head, and the heroes retreat to Wakanda, where Shuri works to remove it safely. Wanda Maximoff is forced to destroy it, which kills Vision, and Thanos then uses the Time Stone to reverse that and rips the stone from his head.

The Reality Stone appears as the Aether, a weapon the Dark Elf Malekith tried to use to plunge the universe into darkness. Thor: The Dark World (2013), directed by Alan Taylor, explains that Odin's father Bor defeated Malekith and hid the Aether away, but Jane Foster stumbles on it in London and it takes hold of her. Thor brings her to Asgard, where healers cannot cure her, and the Aether wakes Malekith, who attacks Asgard to get it back.

Malekith absorbs the Aether and heads for Greenwich, where the Convergence is strongest, planning to unleash darkness. Thor defeats him while the two are thrown between worlds, and Malekith is crushed under his own ship. In the mid credits scene, Sif and Volstagg take the Aether to the Collector for safekeeping, and he says he now wants the other Infinity Stones. The film never names it, but by elimination, since the other five stones are named elsewhere, the Aether is the Reality Stone.

What it does on screen is take over a living host and threaten to swallow whole realms in darkness.

The Power Stone is the gem hidden inside a sealed orb that a scavenger named Peter Quill lifts from a ruined world called Morag in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), directed by James Gunn. The theft puts a bounty on his head from Yondu and sends Ronan's agent Gamora after him. The Collector cracks the orb open at Knowhere and reveals an Infinity Stone inside, and the explosion that follows lets Ronan seize it.

Ronan mounts the gem on his warhammer and sets course for Xandar, where it crashes his flagship into the city. The stone burns whoever holds it, so Quill survives only because Drax, Rocket, Gamora and the others link up and share the load, and together they use it to destroy Ronan. Quill then swaps in a fake and gives the genuine gem to the Nova Corps.

The film never uses the name. By elimination, since the other five are named elsewhere, this is the Power Stone, and Thanos takes it along with the Space Stone in the opening attack on the Asgardian ship in Infinity War. What the Xandar battle shows is raw destructive force that no single person can bear alone.

The Time Stone is the stone Doctor Strange guards in Avengers: Infinity War, and the first film to show what time magic can do is Doctor Strange (2016), directed by Scott Derrickson. In that film Stephen Strange secretly studies forbidden texts and learns to bend time using the Eye of Agamotto. He then confronts Dormammu inside a time loop that kills him again and again, until the worn down ruler of the Dark Dimension agrees to leave Earth. The film sets up the larger Infinity Stone storyline, and its mid credits scene has Thor visit Strange in the New York Sanctum.

In Infinity War, Strange follows Thanos's aides into space with Tony Stark and Peter Parker, and there he gives up the Time Stone to save Stark. Thanos later uses it to reverse Vision's destruction and take the Mind Stone.

The power on display is the bending of time, seen in the loop against Dormammu and in Thanos undoing Wanda's choice.

The Soul Stone is the last of the six to appear, and it is the one that demands a person in exchange. In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos reaches Vormir and gets the stone there, but the price is the life of someone he loves, and he sacrifices his adopted daughter Gamora. The film shows the cost of holding it rather than its power.

Avengers: Endgame mirrors that price. Natasha Romanoff gives up her life so that Clint Barton can obtain the Soul Stone, and Bruce Banner later uses the gathered stones to bring everyone back. Black Widow (2021), directed by Cate Shortland, returns to the fallout in its post credit scene, where Yelena visits Natasha's grave and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine points her toward Clint as the person to blame for Natasha's death.

If you are new to the saga, watch Infinity War and Endgame back to back to see the Soul Stone's two sacrifices side by side.

The Infinity Stones appear across eleven films, and the order depends on whether you follow release order or chronological order. In release order the stones build toward Thanos, with the Tesseract's cameo in Thor (2011) arriving just before Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). In chronological order, Captain America: The First Avenger opens the saga in 1942 and Captain Marvel (2019) comes second, set in 1995, so the Tesseract is the first stone you meet either way.

The four MCU Spider-Man films sit between these entries but do not center on the stones: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Spider-Man: Brand New Day are covered in the Spider-Man franchise. For the full watch order, see Marvel movies in order, and for where each film sits in the story, see the Marvel timeline.

When all six stones sit in the Infinity Gauntlet, a single snap of its fingers can erase half of all living things. The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) mid credits scene shows Thanos putting on a metal gauntlet and saying he will go after the Infinity Stones himself. Earlier hints include a scene during the credits of The Avengers (2012), where the Other reports the failed attack on Earth to his master, who is Thanos, and the Thor: Ragnarok mid credits scene, where a huge spacecraft stops the Asgardian ship, which later films link to him.

In Infinity War, Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet and snaps his fingers, and half of all living things turn to dust. Bucky Barnes, T'Challa, Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker, Doctor Strange and the Guardians are among those who vanish. Thor lands a heavy blow, but Thanos still completes the snap.

In Endgame, Bruce Banner uses the gathered stones in a gauntlet and brings everyone back. Both films were huge hits: Box Office Mojo lists $2.05 billion worldwide for Infinity War on a $350 million budget, and $2.94 billion for Endgame on a $356 million budget (a total that includes a later re-release).

After Avengers: Endgame, every stone has been returned to the moment in the past where it was taken. The film opens with the surviving Avengers discovering that Thanos has destroyed the stones so they cannot be used again, and the rest of the plan is a time heist to collect earlier versions. Steve Rogers is the one who later returns each stone to its original time.

Thanos was finally killed by Tony Stark. In the final battle, a version of Thanos from the past learns of the Avengers' plan and attacks their base with his army. Tony takes the stones, snaps his fingers to erase Thanos and his army, and dies from the strain. His friends and family hold a funeral for him.

Steve then chooses to stay in the past and live a full life, and he later hands his shield to Sam Wilson as an old man. Avengers: Doomsday, which Disney lists for December 18, 2026, is the next Avengers film, and the latest on it sits at Avengers: Doomsday.

In my opinion, the Infinity Stones work because the saga treats them as a slow reveal rather than a checklist. Most of the six arrive inside films about something else: a 1942 war adventure, a Norse prince's sequel, a band of misfits stealing an orb. It could be argued that this is the franchise's cleverest structural choice, since a viewer who never planned to follow the Thanos story still met several of the stones by accident.

If I rank them by how well the films use them, the Soul Stone comes first, because its price gives Infinity War and Endgame their emotional weight and echoes in both Gamora's fate and Natasha's. The Time Stone is a close second, with Doctor Strange (2016) turning its power into a time loop that beats a cosmic ruler without a punch being thrown. The Mind Stone gets the longest arc, running from Loki's scepter to Vision's death. The Space Stone earns its place for starting the whole saga in 1942. The Power Stone is the most visually dramatic on screen in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), but perhaps it matters less afterward. The Reality Stone ranks last for me, because The Dark World leaves it as a mid credits delivery to the Collector with little follow up.

If you are catching up, start with Captain America: The First Avenger and work forward through the films above, or head to Marvel movies ranked to see where the stone films land in the full list.