Ranking the 10 best blockbusters of summer 2024, including Deadpool & Wolverine and Trap
As we start to break out the pumpkin spice candles and pick out our best Halloween costumes for next month, we can start to see the summer slowly fading into fall.
With the extremely fall-friendly Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dominating at the box office last weekend, the summer movie season has officially given us its final bow.
There were some absolutely great films this summer at the mid-budget and independent level, with I Saw the TV Glow, The Bikeriders, Dìdi, Themla and Blink Twice just to name a few great examples.
We're going to go big with our rankings for the summer crop, parsing through the 10 best blockbusters that we saw at the multiplex over the summer months. From Marvel to M. Night Shyamalan, some truly terrific films on this list helped us beat the heat and soak in the best of big-budget moviemaking.
10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Some of this is outstanding, thorny science-fiction that shrewdly builds on the legacy of the original three with real confidence and complexity. Some of it drags a little, ambling without the gravity Matt Reeves brought to the last two and in desperate need of a tighter edit.
This one feels most like Rise of the Planet of the Apes in that there’s so much to like, but it feels like the best of this new Apes chapter will be told down the road. If we’d gotten more Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand going in with a fantastic performance) and less set-up with the eagle apes, we’d really be talking about one of the best movies of the year. Even so, this is quite the experience and makes you very eager to see what’s next.
9. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
The long-gestating fourth installment in the series is a pretty big win, finding a nice blend between the breezy tone of the first installment and the kind of emotional heft that typically accompanies a legacy sequel. Adding in excellent actors like Taylour Paige, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kevin Bacon and Luis Guzmán never hurts, nor does Murphy slipping right back into his Detroit Lions garb and Foley charisma with complete and total ease. While the film parallels the original in pretty recognizable ways (like most legacy sequels do), there’s more than enough separation to help the wiser elements of aged characters settle. The fourth film is a rousing success compared to what came before it, even if you can tell that this is absolutely a movie designed for streaming. The star isn’t, however, and it’s really special that we got Murphy in his absolute silver screen star mode as Foley again.
8. Twisters
The rip-roaring kinda-sorta sequel to the 1996 cheeseball classic does exactly what it needs to do to keep you gripped to your seat all while keeping things fresh as possible to not make this feel overtly... cyclical. Glen Powell's big movie-star moment has come a few times now, but Twisters is as good an example as any that he was dipped in a vat of unfiltered charisma as a baby. The more focused character points here exceed the first, while the storm horror hits as hard as it did all those years ago (just a chicken replacing a cow as the sight gag of the summer). If you feel it, chase it, and chase it this one does. In a less-crowded summer, we'd have this film up higher.
7. The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is one of the most purely enjoyable summer blockbusters in some time. David Leitch’s best solo feature yet pushes in all of the chips on the combined megawatt star power of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, and an uncynical love of the process of bringing movies to life.
The film features some of Leitch’s savviest stunt work yet, stringing together some stand-and-applaud action sequences backed by a rock-steady story that gives flowers to the hard-working craftspeople who keep movies going (and mocks the celebrity egos who zap the process of its magic). In terms of pure excitement, you cannot go wrong here.
6. Alien: Romulus
Alien: Romulus is the Xenomorph roller coaster from your worst nightmare that Disney World would never construct at one of its theme parks. The sheer adrenaline Fede Alvarez infuses in this thing is beyond impressive, as he successfully walks the wobbly franchise tightrope between paying homage to the past and trying to drag the series into a new direction. Sure, there are a few fan service moments that probably should've stayed in the egg, but at its best, Alien: Romulus is the horrifying head rush it needed to be. The Rogue One: A Star Wars story comparisons are on point, and Cailee Spaeny and particularly David Jonsson deliver and then some.
5. A Quiet Place: Day One
Staging one of the most intimate, character-focused blockbusters of the decade so far, filmmaker Michael Sarnoski earns his studio bona fides in thrilling fashion with A Quiet Place: Day One. A brilliant monster film that understand full well that the beasts are never as compelling as the ones they’re terrorizing, Sarnoski takes a bold, uncompromising approach to showing us what happens when the world went quiet. While it’s got that spine-tingling dread John Krasinski forged with the first two installments, Sarnoski refocuses the story into studying the basic decencies we’re capable of for our neighbors on the fly in the face of grave danger.
The Quiet Place movies have an incredibly optimistic streak about how people might handle such an apocalyptic event, and this installment hammers that home more than ever. Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn both deliver in spades as two strangers with very different outlooks on life who reinforce the film’s grand message that even monsters that can kills us with the drop of a pin don’t have to break our spirit and sense of goodwill toward others.
4. Inside Out 2
An impressive, affecting expansion of Inside Out‘s emotionally resonant themes, Inside Out 2 proves that Pixar knows exactly how to create a sequel that both compliments and matures what came before. While you’re not quite going to get the headrush of concept again, the new film more than makes up for it with a striking examination of how the rampant anxiety of your teenage years can throw your entire equilibrium out of whack.
The film is funnier than its predecessor, and its wallop of a finale hits just as hard. Perhaps this film will bump itself up the list with more views because it really is such a gift to have such a knowing study of the anxious mind geared for all audiences. Don’t be surprised if the adults get as much as this as the kids did, particularly when it comes to accepting what is and making the most of it. We also want a Pouchy spinoff as soon as possible.
3. Deadpool & Wolverine
As much as Marvel may catch some flak for ripping its own multiverse pivot post-Avengers: Endgame while still bringing Robert Downey Jr. back and doubling down on it, Deadpool & Wolverine is still one of its best-ever films, one that manages to bring so much more genuinely inspired satire and surprising emotion to the table than most any film in this series.
Ryan Reynolds gives what we’re hoping will be his grand sendoff to the Merc with the Mouth his all, while Hugh Jackman somehow avoids trampling on the sacrifice of 2017’s Logan with his excellent return as Wolverine. Emma Corrin is the best Marvel villain in ages, and you’ll have more fun watching this than, honestly, in most all of the MCU movies on this list because it’s way more focused on having a great time than connecting all these gasping straws together for five movies down the road.
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Following Mad Max: Fury Road was never going to be easy, but Miller veered into full-fledged Biblical epic territory with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It’s a spectacular sequel, adding a new layer of sweeping emotion and vengeful venom as it spans years of Furiosa’s journey from a green oasis to the Fury Road. Miller wisely avoids trying to recreate a masterpiece and still manages to scrape the same ceiling that made its predecessor such a groundbreaking moment in cinema.
Chris Hemsworth delivers one of the great villainous performances of the decade so far as Dementus, while Anya Taylor-Joy takes the Furiosa baton from Charlize Theron with ease. Some of the war rig and motorbike sequences in this rival the best scenes in Mad Max: Fury Road, while the more methodical world-building and deepened dramatic stakes added meaning to the series.
1. Trap
M. Night Shyamalan, take a bow. His latest film has the plot line of the year so far, for starters: a serial killer father stuck in a pop megastar concert labyrinth with his daughter meant to ensnare him for his dastardly deeds. Somehow, the film is even more irresistible than it sounds, anchored by one of the best leading performances of the year in Josh Harnett's goofy dad vibes slowly eroding into something more sinister (and right back to pop pop mode) at the drop of a hat.
Shyamalan is completely in control of this brilliantly confined thriller, as you can tell he's operating at a level of glee and mastery we haven't seen from him since his heyday. It's just special to see such a talented filmmaker fall so in love with his story and maximize its potential. Trap is the movie of the summer, and it's also one of the best movies of the year.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Ranking the 10 best blockbusters of summer 2024, including Deadpool & Wolverine and Trap
