That’s it. Summer is pretty much over and depending on where you stand, it seemed like a pretty good one to me with a lot of new franchises launched and a couple sequels that ended up being better than anyone expected.
In the gallery below, you can find out which 11 movies I thought excelled this summer and a couple of comments.
I will include the caveat that I only included movies that received a wide release, which is the only reason why I didn’t include Steve James’ Roger Ebert doc Life Itself or Mike Myers’ doc Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (And before anyone asks, I didn’t see all of How to Train Your Dragon 2 due to extenuating circumstances, so I can’t include that either.)
(Also, I want to add while these are my favorite movies of the summer, the order may change a little by the end of the year for any of them that make it into my annual Top 25.)
That’s it for my picks for the summer as we look forward to the start of the fall festival and awards seasons, but check back soon for the Weekend Warrior’s official summer box office wrap-up.
Weekend Warrior Top 11 Movies of Summer 2014
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#1 Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel Studios/Disney)
My most anticipated movie of the year delivered well beyond my expectations and quickly became my favorite Marvel movie yet, thanks to the rag-tag group of outcasts and a hilarious sense of humor.
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#2 Boyhood (IFC Films)
At this point, you must have heard a lot about Richard Linklater's epic 12-year slice-of-life drama with Ellar Coltrane playing a kid whose life we see over the course of 12 years and numerous drunken stepfathers.
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#3 Edge of Tomorrow (Warner Bros.)
One of Tom Cruise's best movies in years thanks to a terrific sci-fi premise, the directing prowess of Doug Liman and his pairing with Emily Blunt. The movie was more fun than anyone could expect.
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#4 Chef (Open Road)
I truly loved Jon Favreau's foodie comedy ever since seeing it at SXSW since it really delivered some wonderful characters and storytelling with Favreau delivering some of his strongest acting and writing in years.
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#5 What If (CBS Films)
This Daniel Radcliffe-Zoe Kazan relationship comedy hit a little close to home but it was very funny and sweet in the way it depicted how one perfectly nice guy ends up in the friend zone.
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#6 22 Jump Street (Sony)
Speaking of unrequited love, Jonah Hill's Schmidt and Channing Tatum's Jenko returned for a comedy sequel that was way better than anyone expected, maybe because it was so self-aware about the pressures of delivering on a sequel. The LEGO Movie's Christopher Miller & Phil Lord score again!
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#7 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Fox)
Matt Reeves' sequel, which takes place ten years after "Rise," was another sequel that was as good or better than the original, really building on Caesar's origin story and showing even more of what could be done with state-of-the-art performance capture and CG.
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#8 A Most Wanted Man (Roadside Attractions)
Philip Seymour Hoffman leaves us with one of the best performances of his career, but that was only part of what made Anton Corbijn's political thriller so riveting.
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#9 Get On Up (Universal)
A movie that should have done way better than it did, Tate Taylor really nailed telling the story of the legendary James Brown, as played impeccably by Chadwick Boseman. Kudos to Nelsan "True Blood" Ellis for his fantastic turn as Bobby Byrd, too.
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#10 Godzilla (Warner. Bros.)
I love the King of the Monsters as much as the next guy, and though he didn't make too many appearances in Gareth Edwards' reintroduction, they still delivered a fun summer movie with solid human characters mixed in with the monster fights.
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#11 X-Men: Days of Future Past (Fox)
Bryan Singer's return to the directing chair also brought back many favorites from the first three X-movies along with their younger versions from "First Class." The results really worked out well and left us chomping at the bit for "X-Men: Apocalypse."
