BEST OF MOVIES
Summer movies have a reputation for being big, loud and dumb; less refined than their autumnal cousins, and less easy to ignore than February’s cinematic doldrums. But stack up enough summers, and you’re bound to get some classics. Here are just 10.
10. JAWS – JUNE 20, 1975
Every list of this sort has a catch. This one’s is Jaws. The original blockbuster got moviegoers thinking about summertime releases, and as I found out when I showed it to my young kids recently, it’s still really, really scary.
9. STAR WARS – MAY 25, 1977
With its desert-planet locations, the heat shimmering on the screen matched that rolling off the drive-in tarmac; or that’s how I remember it from when I was seven. Star Wars movies have gone for December releases of late, but that changes when the Han Solo movie opens May 25, 2018, followed by Episode IX a year later.
8. GREASE – JUNE 13, 1978
“Summer lovin’, happened so fast ...” The soundtrack screams summer, as does the setup, in which a boy and a girl (played by a man and a woman in their twenties) fall in love at the beach and then try to make it work when school starts in the fall.
7. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – JUNE 12, 1981
Archeology, adventure and Nazis; nothing says summer like this throwback to the film serials of the 1930s, when there’s anecdotal evidence that summers lasted longer than they do in this hurried century.
6. BULL DURHAM – JUNE 15, 1988
Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon headline this quintessential “boys of summer” movie, mixing major-league romance and minor-league ball in proportions that have never again been duplicated.
5. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY – JULY 1, 1991
That’s right; Ontario native James Cameron’s followup to 1984’s The Terminator – one of those sequel-betterthan-the-original rarities – premiered (in the U.S.) on Canada Day.
4. JURASSIC PARK – JUNE 9, 1993
Widely seen as heralding the age of digital effects wizardly (for good and ill), few films have matched the joyous terror experienced by moviegoers when the approaching T. rex (a cretaceous creature, but whatever) started making waves in a glass of water.
3. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL – JULY 9, 2003
It’s easy to forget, 14 years and four movies later, what an original idea the first Pirates movie seemed. Johnny Depp even got an Oscar nomination for playing Jack Sparrow; these days he’s lucky not to get a Razzie.
2. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – JULY 21, 2014
Summer is the de facto season of superheroes, but we’re going to pay homage to this one, which crashed onto screens and took everyone by surprise, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of the year.
1. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – MAY 14, 2015
Seldom has a reboot seemed so fresh as when George Miller brushed the dust off his 1979 original and brought it back with a pro-feminist subplot and some of the most exciting and inventive stunts seen in years.