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Top Summer Blockbusters |
All of the films in the top 25 earned over $381 million, opened in the summer, and were within the last 25 years. The Summer Season is usually measured from the first Friday in May through Labor Day Weekend. A short summary description of each film is included. A few other sites post all-time box-office information, including the Internet Movie DataBase, Boxoffice.com, Boxofficemojo.com, and The-numbers.com. |
(Based Upon Domestic Gross Revenue, Unadjusted for Inflation) - Through 2024 Releases |
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| Film/Year/Description | ||||
| Top Gun: Maverick (2022) In this sequel to the original 1986 film, Tom Cruise returned as top US Navy aviator Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell to train a group of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission (to combat a rogue nation with a uranium enrichment field). His trainees included Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's deceased best friend Officer Lt. Nick "Goose" Bradshaw. Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), single mother and daughter of a former Admiral, served as Maverick's love interest. Reprising his previous role was Adm. Tom "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer), commander of US Pacific Fleet. |
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| Inside Out 2 (2024) In this coming-of-age sequel, 13 year old Riley Andersen was now a teenager about to enter HS, facing new emotions: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. By film's end, she had discovered how to have her 1st and 2nd generation emotions work together. |
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| Jurassic World (2015) In a luxury resort that was the habitat for genetically-engineered dinosaurs, an Indominus Rex escaped, followed by others, setting off a chain reaction of chaos. The visitors had to be saved from the prehistoric assault. |
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| Barbie (2023) From director and co-writer Greta Gerwig - a coming-of-age tale set in pink, candy-coated Barbie Land where a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll named Barbie (Margot Robbie), in the midst of an existential crisis, was joined by her boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gosling) to journey to the human world (to sunny Los Angeles), to struggle to become a real woman in a patriarchal world. |
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| Marvel's The Avengers
(2012) The highly-anticipated 3-D superhero tale produced by Disney-owned Marvel Studios brought together, under Nick Fury's peace-keeping S.H.I.E.L.D, a team of superhumans (Iron Man/Tony Stark, the Hulk/Bruce Banner, Thor, the Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff, Hawkeye/Clint Barton and Captain America/Steve Rogers) to save the Earth from Loki and his army. The sixth installment in Marvel's Cinematic Universe. |
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| Incredibles 2 (2018) A sequel to The Incredibles (2004), with Elastigirl (Helen) as the star super-hero battling against new supervillain Screenslaver, while Mr. Incredible took on domestic chores. |
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| The Lion
King (2019) A remake (or reimagining) of the 1994 classic Disney animation as a CGI-dependent "live action" and musical spectacular - a 'photo-realistic' computer-animated redo. It told the same story of young lion Simba whose father Mufasa was murdered by his villainous uncle Scar. |
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| The
Dark Knight (2008) Christian Bale's brooding Batman and Heath Ledger's scary Joker gave this comic-book movie reboot real emotional depth. |
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| Finding Dory (2016) Blue tang fish Dory, afflicted with short-term memory loss, has since childhood been looking for her lost parents, with help from her friends Nemo and Marlin. |
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| Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) The sequel to the 2012 hit film, and the 11th film in Marvel's Cinematic Universe. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and other Avengers superheroes, including Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye battled the terrifying technological villain Ultron (James Spader), a mechanical AI with the goal of human extinction. |
 
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| The
Dark Knight Rises (2012) In the last of director Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman films, the caped superhero Dark Knight (Christian Bale), aka Bruce Wayne, battled a masked villain named Bane (Tom Hardy) to save Gotham City. |
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| Shrek
2 (2004) Kids loved the rude, stinky-but-goodhearted green troll Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers). Adults identified with his nemesis in-laws. |
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| Toy Story 4 (2019) A road trip story involving Woody, Buzz, Bonnie, and a new toy known as Forky. |
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| Star
Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) Fans rushed back to the future, giving Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman a thumbs up and Jar Jar Binks a big thumbs down. |
 
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| Pirates
of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) This sequel added a monster, a ghost ship and the tentacle-bearded Davy Jones to Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow. |
 
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| Jurassic
World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) Set three years after the previous film (Jurassic World (2015)), the island of Isla Nublar was abandoned and the theme park was closed down, but its dormant volcano erupted, causing a massive effort to rescue the dinosaurs and prevent them from becoming extinct. |
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| Toy Story 3 (2010) Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the toys had to face the fact that children grow up and put away childish things: Adults wept. |
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| Wonder Woman (2017) The epic adventure and origin story of the former princess of the Amazons named Diana Prince, who became a super-warrioress, after being raised and trained on a paradisical island and transported to World War I-era London. |
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| Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) In Marvel's action-adventure fantasy and superhero film, enigmatic Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) joined with strange teenaged dream girl America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), sorcerer supreme Wong (Benedict Wong), and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), the Scarlet Witch, to prevent the destruction of the multiverse. |
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| Iron Man 3 (2013) Another blockbuster sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the 7th), featuring billionaire industrialist Tony Stark and his alter-ego, Iron Man pitted against a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin. |
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| Captain America: Civil War (2016) Another superhero film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the 13th), and coming after Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). The Avengers were fractured into two groups, led by: (1) Steve Rogers/Captain America who opposed regulation, and (2) Tony Stark/Iron Man who supported regulation. |
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| Spider-Man
(2002) Director Sam Raimi reinvigorated Marvel's superhero while Tobey Maguire convinced us that high-school nerd Peter Parker could become a superhero after a spider bite, and then battled nemesis The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and fought for Mary Jane Watson's (Kirsten Dunst) heart (with a unique upside-down kiss). |
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| Transformers: Revenge of
the Fallen (2009) Robots that turned into cars and guns returned in a sequel that outperformed the original. Robots took to new, cooler environments for battle and presented quite a contrast, fighting on the pyramids and the Brooklyn Bridge. |
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| Spider-Man:
Far From Home (2019) Sony's latest standard superhero action-adventure film, serving as a follow-up to the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019). Tom Holland followed in the footsteps of both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as the title-character Peter Parker (alias Spider-Man). |
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| Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017) Marvel's fantasy-sci-fi sequel to its previous 2014 film (with a gross of $333.2 million), about a team of extra-terrestrial misfit superheroes led by Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) (Chris Pratt), who was to learn about his true parentage. |
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| Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023) Sony's sequel to the less successful Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and the second film in the Spider-Verse franchise. It was another in the continuing series of animated superhero films about the adventures of Miles Morales with Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman across the multiverse. |
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| Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011) The eighth and final installment found Harry and his friends finally defeating Lord Voldemort during a dramatic showdown. |
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Top
Summer Blockbusters of All-Time: These
are the top 25 Summer Blockbusters, according to their total
US domestic gross revenue rankings (doesn't include
revenue from re-releases, re-issues, or 3-D), to fairly accurately
show which films have been the largest blockbusters during
the summer months.