The Greatest Summer time Films of 2024

I neglect who stated it first (perhaps it was Thomas Edison?) however it actually is true: We come to the flicks for magic. We’d like that, all of us, that indescribable feeling we get when the lights start to dim and we go someplace we’ve by no means been earlier than.

For these of us who go to the flicks not simply to be entertained, however in some way reborn (collectively), it was a surprisingly good summer season on the films — particularly after final summer season, which regardless of Barbenheimermania nonetheless included disappointments like Elemental and Gran Turismo, plus outright clunkers like Meg 2: The Trench, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and the Little Mermaid remake — together with a number of Hollywood strikes that stopped movie productions of their tracks.

Not each single considered one of this yr’s summer season’s tales felt good and highly effective. Perhaps the highs in film theaters weren’t at all times that excessive. However the lows have been not often very low both, and nearly all the main tentpoles delivered what clients paid for: Thrills, motion, romance, and numerous explosions.

For sake of equity, I solely ranked broad releases, together with productions that have been launched in film theaters. (In any other case Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F in all probability may have snuck in there in direction of the underside of this listing.) After a sluggish begin to 2024, and doom-and-gloom predictions that warned final yr’s strikes had worsened the already precipitous declines in theater attendance, the summer season reminded us: Heartache nonetheless feels good in a spot like this.