The surgeon who knew Stephen first
Christine works in the emergency room of the same New York hospital where Stephen Strange is the star neurosurgeon. In Doctor Strange she is his colleague and his ex, the one person who can call out his arrogance and still care about him. She asks him to take a case that is not glamorous, he refuses, and in one short scene you learn almost everything about both of them.
After Stephen's car crash, Christine is the one who keeps showing up. He pushes her away during his worst stretch, and that rejection is a key part of why his later change feels earned.
Her appearances in order
- Doctor Strange (film, essential)
- What If...? (series, optional): an alternate-universe animated appearance
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (film, essential)
Two films is a short list, but both are rated essential, and Christine is important in each. She does not appear in the Avengers team-ups or in Spider-Man: No Way Home, so you can treat her story as a thread that runs only through Stephen's solo movies.
Moments that define her
The best Christine scene in the first film comes after Stephen has started training in the mystic arts. He turns up at her hospital badly hurt, and she has to operate on him while things she cannot explain happen around her. It is funny, tense and the moment she realizes his new life is real.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens with Christine getting married, and Stephen is a guest rather than the groom. That small sting sets the tone for his arc in the film: a man who saved the universe but still wonders whether he could have been happy. The multiverse plot also brings in another version of Christine from a different reality, and the film uses her to ask what Stephen and Christine might have looked like if their choices had gone differently. We will not say more than that.
Characters connected to Christine
Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) is the center of her story, and their unfinished relationship is the most human part of both films. Wong, the stern librarian of Kamar-Taj, appears alongside Stephen in both movies and shows the mystic side of his life that Christine only glimpses. Mordo is Stephen's fellow student in the first film, and a version of him returns in Multiverse of Madness. Christine rarely shares scenes with either of them, which is the point: she belongs to the ordinary world Stephen left behind.
Rachel McAdams as Christine
Rachel McAdams brings an easy warmth to a role that could have been a simple love interest. She makes Christine sharp and capable on her own terms, and her comic timing in the surgery scene is one of the highlights of the first film.
Fans know McAdams from Mean Girls, where she played Regina George, and from the romance The Notebook. She also starred in the newsroom drama Spotlight and the time-travel love story About Time.
How to watch her story
Watch Doctor Strange first and Multiverse of Madness second. If you want the full context for the sequel, add Spider-Man: No Way Home and WandaVision between them, since both set up events that the second film picks up right away. For Christine herself, though, the two Doctor Strange movies are all you need. Our character directory lists everyone else from Stephen's corner of the MCU.