10. “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015)
Every time a movie like “King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword” comes out and loses literally hundreds of millions of dollars, we’re reminded that it’s not Netflix or VOD that’s killing the movie industry, but studio executives’ desperate need to reboot, remake or sequelize everything in search of franchises. Which is why it’s almost annoying that George Miller’s reboot/remake/sequel to his own “Mad Max” franchise was the best movie of its year — on the surface, it’s everything wrong with Hollywood at the moment, but the craft, imagination and passion on display saw it soar above everything else. Extending and embellishing Miller’s post-apocalyptic hellscape in a way that only could have been dreamed of in the 1980s, it has some of the greatest action sequences ever made — hell, it basically is one of the greatest action sequences ever made — but convinces just as much in its quieter moments too. A miracle of a movie.
9. “Die Hard” (1988)
It spawned literally dozens of ‘Die Hard On A [Boat/Train/Alcatraz]’ rip-offs over the years, but none — literally none — worked out how to replicate the formula in a way that came anywhere close to John McTiernan’s landmark actioner. Pitting Bruce Willis’ off-duty cop against a gang of Eurotrash terrorists who are actually secretly pulling a heist, it has an almost procedural level of detail (there’s no mowing down of waves of bad guys here: every one of Gruber’s crew gets a personality and gets crossed off our hero’s naughty list), with a fearsomely ingenious screenplay that uses every facet of its location and setup. But for all the film’s great action scenes, it works because of the humanity in it: Alan Rickman’s witty villain, the textured side characters, the vulnerability of John McClane picking glass from his bare feet.
8. “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980)
We said a couple of weeks back that “Star Wars” was our favorite movie in the franchise. But “The Empire Strikes Back” might be the better blockbuster. The fierce anticipation that greeted ‘The Force Awakens’ had nothing on the mania that greeted the arrival of the sequel to what was then the biggest movie of all time, and “The Empire Strikes Back” builds on George Lucas’ extraordinary universe in so many ways. From the spectacular battle on Hoth (still arguably the best action scene in the franchise), to the mysticism of Yoda, to the jaw-dropper of a conclusion, it wows, mystifies and staggers at every opportunity, and became the template (for better or worse) for every franchise sequel over the next 37 years on, and beyond.
7. “Alien” (1979)
Picking between “Alien” and “Aliens” made us regret our one-movie-per-franchise rule in a big way. They’re very different films — Ridley Scott’s tense, contained, almost austere haunted-house horror; James Cameron’s explosive war movie of an actioner. They’re both tremendous, and proved to be big summer hits. But while “Aliens” might in some ways be the more traditional summer blockbuster — it’s more spectacular, more rousing in its ‘get away from her, you bitch’ finale — we couldn’t deny the purity of “Alien.” Learning from the lessons of “Star Wars” in that space should feel lived-in and expansive, while taking a veeeeeery different approach to the sci-fi movie, it created a fascinating universe that’s gone on to seven sequels and spin-offs, while keeping at its core very primal kinds of horror: of invasion, of birth, and of the monster in the dark.
6. “The Shining” (1980)
You probably don’t think of “The Shining” as a summer blockbuster. Partly because it wasn’t a straight-up hit (it made a thoroughly decent $44 million, equivalent to about $140 million today when adjusted for inflation, but was expensive enough that that wasn’t a huge profit), partly because we’ve come not to expect the kind of artistry in our blockbuster that this film shows. But it undoubtedly fits the blockbuster template: a big-budget adaptation of a best-selling book by the hottest writer around, starring arguably the biggest star in the world at the time, and from the acclaimed director of ‘2001‘ with his first movie in five years. And it plays oddly blockbusterish today: its iconic images feel so larger-than-life, the terror it evokes so explosive, its narrative so satisfying. Maybe we just need to train ourselves again to expect that blockbusters should be more like this, and less like “Suicide Squad.”
5. “Blade Runner” (1982)
It’s interesting to see some bemoan long-awaited sequel “Blade Runner 2049” as a crass commercialization of its 1982 forefather — as if the original “Blade Runner” wasn’t intended to make a ton of money. Sure, the film perhaps became more cult favorite than smash, but it still made $27 million (around $80 million today), was the hotly anticipated followup to smash hit “Alien” for Ridley Scott, and was released at the height of summer movie season, in between “E.T.” and “Tron.” And it delivers spectacle like few had seen before — creating a cyberpunk vision of the future that’s proven more influential than almost anything on this list. It might go to some more interesting philosophical places than most of these movies, it might have a more oblique narrative, but it’s a blockbuster through and through, and a tremendously good one at that.
4. “Back To The Future” (1985)
Are there any movies more inherently likable than “Back To The Future”? Sure, you could pick problematic holes in it now (white people inventing rock and roll, etc.), but Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s time-travel comedy is just eminently warm and ingratiating in a way that’s so hard to pull off. And yet it does so without making its lead character into a dull cipher, without filing the interesting edges off (you think that Marty’s mom wanting to fuck him would survive studio notes today?), without becoming too eager to please. It’s a film with nothing on its mind but to entertain, and does so with its cleverly intricate script, its delightful performances and its dextrous direction. Sequels came close, but could never quite recapture the magic formula — and, really, what could?
3. “Jaws” (1975)
The movie that invented the summer blockbuster. Sure, movies had felt like events before — roadshow musicals in the 1960s, big literary adaptations like “The Godfather” and “The Exorcist” in the years before. But in taking the American beach holiday and putting an unknowable, terrifying monster among it, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Peter Benchley’s beach-read bestseller ensured that spectacle, thrills and spills would always be associated with the summer season from here on out. Spielberg shoots the giant-shark scenes with Hitchcockian flair for a man only making his third feature (and being only 28, at that), but the film, like the best blockbusters, excels because of the humor and humanity he injects, whether in the casting — Roy Scheider making the everyman relatable but not boring, Richard Dreyfuss essentially inventing an archetype, Robert Shaw a grizzled Western hero at sea — or with the wit with which he shoots it.
2. “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982)
Seven years on from “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg once again reclaimed the biggest-movie-of-all-time crown from his friend George Lucas, and with a film that, on the surface, couldn’t be more different from his shark movie. Whereas “Jaws” was about terror and fear, “E.T.” was about a friendship, the interloper on normal life being a freakish-looking, strangely adorable alien who befriends young Elliott (Henry Thomas). But really, “E.T” was obviously the product of the same person, just with some dials turned up and some down. Anyone who saw it as a child will tell you of the fear, the sheer emotion that the more suspenseful or tragic sequences elicited, while Spielberg’s unique sense of Americana and wonder is put to quite different use. But the warmth, the invention, the sheer joy of moviemaking is all present here, and the film hasn’t aged a day as a result.
1. “Raiders Of the Lost Ark” (1981)
This is an undeniably Steven Spielberg-heavy top 5 — three movies from the Bearded One in the top 3, and with him having produced the number four pick too. But could we really have it any other way? Spielberg invented the summer blockbuster, for better or for worse, and he was really, really, really good at making them, especially at the start of his career, with “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” coming out six years after “Jaws,” and just one before “E.T.” Really, any of those three could take the top slot, but it’s Indiana Jones that we have the softest spot before, and that arguably comes the closest to perfection. A perfect meld of James Bond and ’30s serial, with dizzying production values, it contains the best virtues of almost everything in the top 10 — the insane stunts of ‘Fury Road,’ the winningly vulnerable hero of “Die Hard,” the witty scripting of ‘Empire Strikes Back‘ writer Lawrence Kasdan, the fascinating world of “Alien,” the terror of “The Shining,” the Harrison Ford-iness of “Blade Runner,” the warmth of “Back To The Future,” the craft and wonder of “Jaws” and “E.T.” It’s a film we’ve seen maybe a dozen times, and still gives something back every time we return. It’s everything movies should be.
Along with some movies that we felt were either too underdog-y (“Escape From New York”), too horror-y (“The Conjuring,” “The Thing,” “An American Werewolf In London”), too comedy-ish (“There’s Something About Mary,” “Bridesmaids”) or just not quite summery or blockbustery enough (“The Truman Show,” “A.I.”), there were plenty more that we could have included that didn’t make the cut.
For the record, we came close to putting in “Ratatouille,” “Star Trek” or its sequel ‘The Wrath Of Khan,’ “Captain America: Civil War,” “Big Trouble In Little China,” “Babe,” “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes,” “Top Gun,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Midnight Run,” “The Rock,” “Magic Mike XXL,” “The Sixth Sense,” “Labyrinth,” “True Lies,” “The Mask,” “Men In Black,” “Moulin Rouge!,” “Tropic Thunder,” “The Karate Kid,” “Pete’s Dragon,” “the original “Clash Of The Titans,” “The Goonies,” “A Fish Called Wanda,”” Ghost,” “Backdraft” and “The Crow.”
And of course, there were other franchise movies that didn’t make the list, from “Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade” to “Aliens” and beyond. Anything else you think should have made the list? Let us know what you miss the most in the comments.