The Summer movie season is on the horizon. It’s the season where the big budget blockbuster productions come into play, and this year is no different. Once again, the Summer season offers a fair share of winning choices among a backdrop of sequels and remakes. One thing I noticed was that a majority of my favorites seem to be taking place during the earlier months, leaving the later part of Summer with a hangover from all of the money-making explosions that surround the season. Below is my list of twenty films that I am dying to see, in number of importance. While the official first day of Summer is June 20th, the Summer movie season to me has always been May-August. Four big months of knock-down, drag out mayhem that usually offers its fair share of yearly favorites when I do my countdown in December.
Enjoy the list
20. Money Monster
Starring – George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack McConnell
In the real-time, high stakes thriller Money Monster, financial TV host Lee Gates (George Clooney) and his producer Patty (Julia Roberts) are put in an explosive situation when an irate investor (Jack O’Connell) takes over their studio, with a bomb strapped to his chest. The two television workers must figure out the motives of this mysterious threat, while figuring out what the connection is to their show.
19. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Starring – The Lonely Island
When his new album fails to sell records, pop/rap superstar conner4real (Andy Samberg) goes into a major tailspin and watches his celebrity high life begin to collapse. He’ll try anything to bounce back, anything except reuniting with his old rap group The Style Boyz.
18. Star Trek Beyond
Starring – Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto
The first leg of the USS Enterprise’s five year mission takes them into uncharted territory. There the Enterprise is nearly destroyed and strands Kirk and his crew on a remote planet with no means of communication. Kirk must then work with the elements to reunite his crew and get back to Earth.
17. Most Likely To Die
Starring – Chad Addison, Jake Busey
A group of former classmates gather for a pre-party at one of their homes the night before their 10-year high school reunion, and one by one, they are brutally slain in a manner befitting each’s senior yearbook superlative.
16. The BFG
Starring – Rebecca Hall, Mark Rylance
A girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) encounters the Big Friendly Giant (Rylance) who, despite his intimidating appearance, turns out to be a kindhearted soul who is considered an outcast by the other giants because unlike his peers refuses to eat boys and girls.
15. High Rise
Starring – Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth Moss
Dr. Robert Laing (Hiddleston) is the newest resident of a luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper whose lofty location places him amongst the upper class. Laing quickly settles into high society life and meets the building’s eccentric tenants: Charlotte (Miller), his upstairs neighbor and bohemian single mother; Wilder (Evans), a charismatic documentarian who lives with his pregnant wife Helen (Moss); and Mr. Royal (Irons), the enigmatic architect who designed the building. Life seems like paradise to the solitude-seeking Laing. But as power outages become more frequent and building flaws emerge, particularly on the lower floors, the regimented social strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a literal class war
14. Sausage Party
Starring – Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill
A misplaced sausage (Rogen) and his savory friends embark on an existential adventure through the aisles of a massive supermarket in this raunchy animated comedy from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. As the store’s annual 4th of July sale draws near, the perishable pals must return to their rightful places on the shelves before the customers come flooding in to fill their carts.
13. The Shallows
Starring – Blake Lively
When Nancy (Blake Lively) is attacked by a great white shark while surfing alone, she is stranded just a short distance from shore. Though she is only 200 yards from her survival, getting there proves the ultimate contest of wills.
12. Me Before You
Starring – Emilia Clarke, Sam Claifin
A girl (Clarke) in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man (Claifin) she’s taking care of.
11. Finding Dory
Starring – Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks
The friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish (DeGeneres) reunites with her loved ones, and everyone learns a few things about the real meaning of family along the way.
10. The Founder
Starring – Michael Keaton, Linda Cardellini , Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch
Written by Robert Siegel (BIG FAN), the film is a drama that tells the true story of how Ray Kroc ( Keaton), a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald (Offerman, Lynch), who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire called McDonald’s
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9. The Purge: Election Year
Starring – Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell
Two years after choosing not to kill the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Barnes (Grillo) has become head of security for Senator Charlene Roan (Mitchell), the front runner in the next Presidential election due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. After the betrayal by one of their own, the two find themselves in a fight to survive against the many supporters of this evil act, on the very night of its celebration.
8. Kubo and the Two Strings
Starring – Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, Matthew McConaughey , Art Parkinson
Kubo (Parkinson) lives a quiet, normal life in a small shore side village until a spirit from the past turns his life upside down by re-igniting an age-old vendetta. This causes all sorts of havoc as gods and monsters chase Kubo who, in order to survive, must locate a magical suit of armor once worn by his late father, a legendary Samurai warrior.
7. Suicide Squad
Starring – Will Smith, Joel McKinnon, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie
A secret government agency recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency.
6. The Secret Life of Pets
Starring – Kevin Hart, Louis CK, Jenny Slate, Eric Stonestreet
Taking place in a Manhattan apartment building, Max’s (Louis CK) life as a favorite pet is turned upside down, when his owner brings home a sloppy mongrel named Duke (Stonestreet). They have to put their quarrels behind when they find out that an adorable white bunny named Snowball (Hart) is building an army of abandoned pets determined to take revenge on all happy-owned pets and their owners.
5. Free State of Jones
Starring – Matthew McConaughey, Mbatha-Gunta Raw
As civil war divides the nation, a poor farmer (McConaughey) from Mississippi leads a group of rebels against the Confederate army.
4. War Dogs
Starring – Jonah Hill, Miles Teller
The true story of two young men, David Packouz (Hill) and Efraim Diveroli (Teller), who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America’s allies in Afghanistan.
3. X-Men: Apocalypse
Starring – James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Lawrence
With the emergence of the world’s first mutant, Apocalypse (Isaac), the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.
2. The Nice Guys
Starring – Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Kim Basinger
A private eye (Crowe) investigates the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in 1970s Los Angeles and uncovers a conspiracy. He finds assistance in the most unlikely of sources, in a small-time investigator (Gosling) who he punched out just hours before.
- Captain America: Civil War
- Starring – Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson
- Political interference in the Avengers’ activities causes a rift between former allies Captain America (Evans) and Iron Man (Downey Jr). This forces the rest of The Avengers to pick a side in the biggest hero VS hero battle ever
- Captain America: Civil War trailer