40. “Apollo 13” (1995)
Ron Howard‘s never gotten much respect from cinephiles as a filmmaker, mostly because his films are almost always stodgy and edgeless. But respect is due when it comes to his best picture, “Apollo 13.” A dramatization of the abortive seventh mission in the moon-landing program, it’s a gripping procedural in which Howard lays off, for the most part, on his more manipulative tics, while giving plenty of humanity to its astronauts (Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton). One suspects that, actually, Howard’s unfussy style found its perfect match with the material here.
39. “Poltergeist” (1982)
We’ve mostly excluded horror movies from the list — they tend to be cheaper and, even if they make tons of summer cash like, say, “The Conjuring,” are usually sleepers rather than much-anticipated events. But whether his role was restricted to writing and producing, or if he, as rumored for decades, really stealth-directed the movie over Tobe Hooper, Steven Spielberg’s feel for all-American suburbia, and the inventive visual effects, push this firmly into blockbuster territory. The story of an ordinary family menaced by ghosts from another dimension, it’s legitimately terrifying, but with a fairy-tale underpinning that elevates it too.
38. “Total Recall” (1990)
One of the most expensive movies ever made on its release, “Total Recall” is a glory in part because of how weird a movie it is to hold that title. Sure, it takes Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and translates it into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie. But Paul Verhoeven creates a subversive sci-fi world that can compete with his own “RoboCop,” complete with old-lady disguises, chest-babies and three-breasted women, drapes a paranoid ’70s thriller around it, and makes sure that it’s always inventive and hugely fun. Len Wiseman’s 2012 remake feels almost insulting in how drab and boring it is by comparison.
37. “Wall-E” (2008)
Pixar were already legendary by the mid-’00s, but after the disappointment of “Cars,” they entered an extraordinary run that showed them moving into new levels of accomplishment and ambition, as shown by “Wall-E.” Their first love story, it follows the titular broken-down garbage-cleaning robot, who falls for a sleek probe droid called EVE, with the two ending up saving the exiled human race in the process. Delivered with gorgeous Roger Deakins-aided visuals and a Jacques Tati-indebted mix of melancholy and silent comedy, it was deemed to be a risk in advance, and went on to make half-a-billion dollars.
36. “Edge Of Tomorrow” (2014)
“It feels like a video game” is often used as an insult, but Doug Liman manages to use the grammar of games to thrillingly cinematic effect with “Edge Of Tomorrow,” which takes the “Groundhog Day” premise and transplants it to a D-Day-style future war against an alien menace. Aided by a Tom Cruise performance that fascinatingly comments on his own stardom, and an instantly iconic one by Emily Blunt, it was mismarketed by the studio and underperformed, but felt genuinely original and exciting to those who did see it, and has become a cult favorite to the extent that a sequel is now in the works.
35. “District 9” (2009)
If studio executives were smarter, “District 9” would have provided a template for the summer blockbuster moving forward. Made without star names by a first-time director (the biggest selling point it had was producer Peter Jackson), with a hard R rating and a fraction of the budget of most of the other films here, Neill Blomkamp’s allegorical actioner nevertheless proved a smash hit, and even a Best Picture nominee. The film’s Verhoevenish mix of satire, body horror and splattery action wasn’t brand new, but it felt as fresh as a daisy when it arrived. Shame that Blomkamp hasn’t matched it since, though.
34. “Grease” (1978)
Summer blockbuster usually come in one shape and size — loud, testosterone-y, and explode-y. But “Grease” stands in fierce contrast to that. Randall Kleiser’s adaptation of the Broadway smash about the romance between greaser John Travolta and popular girl Olivia Newton-John is about as summery a musical as you could ask for (wella wella wella boom, tell me more, etc. etc.), and proved a once-in-a-generation smash on its release in 1978: adjusted for inflation, it took nearly $700 million in theaters. And no wonder: while it’s hardly substantial, it’s giddy, candy-floss fun, performed with great gusto by its cast, and full of earworm tunes.
33. “Minority Report” (2002)
As this list proves, Steven Spielberg virtually invented the blockbuster, but in the 21st century, his prestige-y fall movies have tended to be better on the whole than his summer blockbusters (see “The Terminal, “Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull,” “The BFG”). But our favorite exception (and this is excluding “A.I.,” a summer release that still feels more art movie than blockbuster) is “Minority Report.” His adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s story is a thrill ride, with some of the director’s best visual-effects set pieces, but it’s also a smart and often darkly funny noir thriller with some beautiful, and eerily prescient, world-building. It loses its nerve a bit at the end, but it’s a remarkably entertaining film with real philosophical substance behind it too.
32. “The Fugitive” (1993)
Looking back, it’s pretty weird that in the year of “Schindler’s List” and “The Piano,” a big-budget summer-movie remake of a ’60s TV show from a little-loved director became a Best Picture nominee. But then, Andrew Davis’ “The Fugitive” is just a cracking action thriller, so maybe it’s not so weird after all. Harrison Ford is at his regular-guy-pushed-to-desperation best as a Chicago surgeon framed for his wife’s murder, only to bust out after a memorable train crash, and set out to clear his name while being pursued through every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse by Tommy Lee Jones (who won an Oscar). It’s unfussy, almost old-fashioned stuff, but breathlessly paced and smartly written, with a very human core, in a way that ensures it adds up to much more than the sum of its parts.
31. “The Avengers” (2012)
With the Marvel Cinematic Universe now settled into a consistent groove of middling quality (a few four stars, a few two, mostly solid threes), it’s easy to forget what a tough task Joss Whedon had on his hands with “The Avengers,” and how badly it could have gone wrong. He had to juggle a bunch of very different characters, plus introduce a few more, and deliver a superhero movie of a scale that had never been seen before. After an awkward opening reel, though, he really delivers: the action is legitimately spectacular, but the fun really comes with the way that Whedon writes the character, and lets them play off against each other. Other films have come close, but this is really the high-water mark of the MCU so far.