Once it starts getting unbearably hot and the ice cream truck comes down your street blaring “Turkey in the Straw” while kids scream after it, you just know you want to lock yourself in a dark room with AC for two hours to watch one of the best summer movies, filled with expensive special effects.
We’ve come a long way since a little movie called Jaws became the first summer blockbuster in 1975. Since then, summer blockbuster season has just become a part of pop culture life. But it’s not what it used to be; the flicks we’d normally expect to be the best summer movies (read: sequels, Marvel movies) are now being released earlier and earlier. For example, Black Panther, one of the biggest movies of the year, was released in February.
Over the past 40 years, there have definitely been some movie seasons that were better than others, but this year we lucked out, with a variety of films coming out over the summer months, and not all of them expensive superhero/action flicks. Great films sometimes have trouble getting an audience during the summer, but this year proved to be lucrative even for some small titles. Even though bigger hits like Black Panther, Ready Player One, and A Quiet Place all came out earlier in the year, we still managed to get three Marvel movies, a Pixar sequel, and several movies starring Josh Brolin.
It’s been an embarrassment of riches, cinematically (and literally as well, all of the blockbusters in this list have made more than 100 million dollars). There’s been something for everyone this summer, from heist movies to horror movies to, of course, superhero movies. Here are this year’s summer blockbusters, ranked for your viewing pleasure.