Phase One: Iron Man - The Incredible Hulk - Iron Man 2 - Captain America: The First Avenger - The Avengers (2012)
Phase Two: Iron Man 3 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Guardians of the Galaxy - Avengers: Age of Ultron - Ant Man
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) - Captain America's shield is visible in the background of Tony Stark's lab, helping to set up Captain America: The First Avenger which was in production at the time.
- Elf (2003) - Ray's Pizza Box.
- First Blood (1982) - Poster seen.
- Forrest Gump (1994) - Tony Stark calls on of the soldiers riding in the Humvee "Forrest".
- Friends - Director Jon Favreau played a character similar to Tony Stark named Pete Becker on the hit television series Friends (1994). Both Stark and Becker are rich playboys who give up their current life to fight, Tony fights crime while Pete fights in Ultimate Fighting. Favreau even sported Stark-like facial hair for the role.
- Looney Tunes - When Tony Stark is falling after his escape from the terrorists, the sound effect is that of Wile E. Coyote falling from the Looney Tunes cartoons.
- RoboCop (1987) (1987) - Referenced in dialogue and freefall fight scene.
- RoboCop 2 (1990) - When Iron Man is fighting Obadiah Stane in the final scence and he is 'rinding' Obadiah and pulls some wires shutting down Obadiah's video system. Robo does almost the same in the final fight against Cane by pulling out Cain's brain in exactly the same position.
- The Big Lebowski (1998) - Look closely at the invoices on Obadiah Stane's computer. One of them is full of references to The Big Lebowski, which Jeff Bridges starred in as The Dude. The "Special Cargo Instructions" section has phrases in the text like "the parlance of our times" and "rugs that tie the room together."
- Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) - a photo of Jeff Bridges from the film is used in the awards dinner montage of Tony Stark's life to show a younger Obadiah Stane.
- V for Vendetta (2005) - Iron Man and V both have a scene where they get hit by a large amount of bullets, and then right after, they both say "My Turn" and fire back.
- Jon Favreau describes the film as a kind of independent film-espionage thriller crossbreed; a Robert Altman-directed Superman (1978), with shades of Tom Clancy novels, James Bond films, RoboCop (1987), and Batman Begins (2005).
