For well over a decade, the summer movie season has been mostly held up by several film series.
It had a start in the 2000s with the rise of comic book movies, but really took off in the 2010s as the MCU became fully established. It hit overdrive in the last 10 years. Since 2014, there have been 41 movies released in the following movie series:
Summer 2022, headlined by “Top Gun: Maverick,” has come to an end, meaning it’s time to honor the best the season had to offer.
The summer movie season, for me, runs from the start of May until the end of August, so any movie I watched during that time was eligible. “Maverick” as expected, definitely had some success. However, plenty of other films earned awards too.
The summer of 2020 sure was different for us movie fans. Fortunately, though, with digital media being so prominent, we weren’t completely deprived of film.
While there wasn’t the quantity of movies to choose from for this type of post as there’s been in past years, there were still some quality films put out.
Here are my awards for what this summer had to offer.
Sometimes the summer provides some of the best movie moments of the year, but they often go overlooked during award season. So, to make up for it, I’ve come up with the Summer Movie Awards, giving credit to flicks that come out in the warmest months.
It was a good summer for science fiction, with “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and “Edge of Tomorrow” both having a lot of success. “Edge” earned three awards while “Dawn” won six, including Best Movie.
The comedy “The World’s End” from Edgar Wright led the way this year with five awards while the Superman adaptation “Man of Steel” finished with four including the top prize.
“Pacific Rim” also earned two awards.
“The Avengers” was the biggest movie of the summer and earned seven awards from yours truly. “The Dark Knight,” meanwhile, won four.
The best movie of the summer ended up being the one that premiered at Cannes. “Midnight in Paris” earned four awards, while “X-Men: First Class” won three.
Quentin Tarantino’s World War II flick “Inglorious Basterds” led the number of award wins with six. However, it was the action sci-fi drama “District 9” winning the top prize, along with three other awards.
“The Dark Knight” may be the movie of the year. It certainly is the movie of the summer. It won nine awards, including Best Movie.
“Iron Man,” meanwhile, finished with two awards and several runner-up selections behind Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” picture.
Matthew Liedke on Film 