The most anticipated summer movies of 2023
Indiana Jones returns, the Spider-verse reopens, the Flash arrives, and Barbie is ready for her closeup—there's a popcorn flick for every fan this season
Film News Michael Bay
The A.V. Club can’t predict with 100 percent certainty which 2023 summer movies will be blockbusters, but we sure know which ones want to be (answer: all of them). The studios save their biggest, loudest, and most expensive films for the summer season, which kicks off in May and ends in early September. So, in what has become a modern, summertime tradition, expect an easily marketable, highly merchandisable and potentially awesome avalanche of superhero sagas, long-awaited sequels, and, for those who don’t know their Autobots from their Decepticons, the occasional smaller film that pushes through the noise and makes a summer splash.
This time, superhero fans will line up for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, The Flash, and a new animated Spider-Man movie. Meanwhile, three of civilization’s last remaining movie stars are back; Tom Cruise returns in a new Mission: Impossible, Denzel Washington grabs a gun for The Equalizer 3, and Harrison Ford cracks his whip and cracks wise in his fifth and final appearance as Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny. There is also Fast X, Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, Barbie, and many more big-budget behemoths that will presumably contain post-credit scenes that, OMG, you must stay for! And so, with an eye towards emptying your wallet in the name of entertainment, here’s our rundown of the 25 hottest—and coolest—movies to watch this summer.
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“Andersen’s tale about a mermaid who falls in love with a‘]]]]]’man and makes a deal with a sea witch to become human in exchange for her voice.” You alright? kinda looks you had a stroke there.
I knew ‘]]]]]’man! ‘]]]]]’man was a friend of mine! You, Bob, are no ‘]]]]]’man!
how dare you! I’ve devoted my life to being a ]]]]]’man!
You the ]]]]]’man now, dog!
“We have our top ‘]]]]]’men working on it right now.”“Who?”“TOP. ‘]]]]]’MEN.”
Honestly? Sounds like a lot shite. And not gerbil shit, which is pretty innocuous, but big steamy turds that leave a stain, like something left by an Irish wolfhound that just ate a crockpot full of chili.
“this is the man who always performs shirtless, just because he can”
Isn’t that Phil Collen from Def Leppard?
“a terrifying entity that preys on others’ suffering”
Is he running for President?
No Hard Feelings:
Ok, everybody not wearing a bathrobe, put one on; everybody wearing one, take it off!
Mission Impossible: What Can We Dangle Tom Cruise From Now?
Church of Scientology: What Can We Dangle Tom Cruise From Now?
A clear case of “Porque no los dos?” if I ever heard one!
Church of Scientology: Who can we enslave and make disappear that Tom Cruise Make Excuses For Now?
“…what McQuarrie talked one of the biggest stars on the planet into doing this time.”Gotta guess it’s really the other way around.
Blue Beetle isn’t a cute sentient car, is it?
It’s Herbie’s costumed alter-ego! Personally, I’m surprised that they didn’t revive the Love Bug franchise when VW started making the New Beetle.
Guess they figured if Lindsay Lohan couldn’t make it happen, who could?
That “trailer” for The Equalizer 3: The Equalizing sure is something… XD
Al things being equal?
This Al has no equal (and would probably also know his way around The Home Mart acquiring tools of violence)
I wasn’t a superfan, but whenever I saw that show, I thought Al had a mild yet persistent undercurrent where “I don’t think so, Tim” really meant “I’d like to take an electric drill full Body Double style on you!”
100%
Having obviously not seen Crystal Skull (because obviously), why is Mutt’s last name Williams instead of Ravenwood or Jones? Did he have a stepfather? Was it Jones but he changed it because he didn’t want the name of an absentee dad?
Crystal Skull is pretty good and you should watch it. Marion married some other guy and he raised Henry aka Mutt.
FINE. I actually do like The Beef’s acting so there’s really no reason I shouldn’t watch it (everyone else says it’s terrible but tbh I like a lot of terrible movies). Thanks for the information, also.
I would say it is borderline-terrible. The Beef’s acting is not good in this one. The plot is a shaggy-dog “fetch this thing to get that thing” that feels more videogame walkthrough than the wacky mystical wonder of the 80’s movies. There are a few fun set-pieces (motorcycle chase through Yale campus, giant ant attack, spooky nightime ambush in an Peruvian mummy cemetery). Cate Blanchett is doing a terrible accent from all over the Slavic world and seems to be having a blast. She sword-fights The Beef, which is fun. Overall, it’s about as mediocre as Temple of Doom but without a minecart chase to really sell it.
The minecart chase and Short Round are the best parts of COD. The worst part (aside from the abysmal way they represent India, obviously) is Kate Capshaw’s “acting.” Anyway there seems to be some debate about the virtues of Crystal Skull! I just have to watch it and settle this controversy once and for all.
“INDIIIIEIIEEE!!!!!! INDIIEEEEEEEE!!!! OH NOOOOOO! INDIEEEE!!! SAVE MEEEEE!!!!”
Please no. 🙁
I thought John Hurt’s character raised Mutt, and his last name was Oxley. I don’t know where Williams fits in. As for the movie itself, I don’t think it’s great, but it isn’t as awful as its reputation suggests. Like Disney’s Star Wars movies, it’s continuing a saga that was better left to nostalgia and fanfiction than new movies, though. I’m glad that Mutt seems to have been written out in the upcoming movie though.
Note: Mutt died on the way back to his home planet.
https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Mutt_Williams
Crystal Skull is a good Indiana jones flick and the haters were just the start of the internet turning on a franchise. The movie made 700 million, i think people just went along with the meme of it being bad. Shia was fine and the silly animal scenes and bad CGI were the scapegoats. Did those same detractors even watch Temple of Doom or Last Crusade? In my mind it’s better then TOD.
TOD is my favorite one. LOL
A) Shia was fine. B) The fridge didn’t bother me.C) The reliance of CGI kind of ruined it for me based on the history of doing practical effects in the series. Just because you can do a guy swinging around with a bunch of monkeys doesn’t mean you SHOULD do that.D) However, the idea that the Crystal Skulls were relics of (inner) space aliens does ruin the series for me. Up to that point, the mystery of all these artifacts throughout history being imbued with powers that we can’t comprehend is part of the fun. What used to a series of things with mystical powers of belief can now be retconned as Space Alien Technology. The Ark of the Convenant?..alien space weapon. Jesus’s chalice…alien space medicine. Shankara Stones? alien power crystals.It’s midichlorine counts all over again.
I have been banging the “Temple of Doom is much worse than Crystal Skull” drum for a long time.Glad I’m not alone.
They’re about equivalently bad, I’d say. TOD takes forever to get into gear, Indie’s companions are actively annoying and encumbering and there’s never a good reason why he’s having them tag along. Crystal Skull is a weightless nostagia cash-in that wasted one of the greatest then-living actors by having him be a doddering mute. The CGI is actively hard to look at, even for its era. HOWEVER TOD’s the minecart chase is second only to the Last Crusade tank-through-the-canyon chase as one of the best adventure sequences in cinema. I think that sequence alone pulls it ahead of Skull in the race for “worst Indy movie vs. second-worst Indy movie”
Counterpoint: Skull has 100% more Marion and at least 50% less racism
This is true – Indie is always more fun when paired with a snarky competent peer who disagrees with his methods (Marion, his dad) rather than a screaming liability who doesn’t want to be there (Willie)
“the haters were just the start of the internet turning on a franchise.”Yeah, nobody could possibly have a legitimate reason to dislike a movie I liked!
Your mind sounds like a scary place, lol. Crystal Skull is no way in a tier with temple and crusade. The damn CGI monkeys, the aliens which were soooo out of place; retrofitting sci-fi into what had hereto for been only a supernatural setting
i rewatched it recently and overall it just looks like shit. so much weird digital lighting and dodgy VFX, but worse than that there are just too many characters cramping each other’s style.90% of the mystery is indy following in someone else’s very recent footsteps, which took the fun out of the mysteries to me.i do agree that temple of doom is (slightly) worse. never liked it, even as a kid.
That’s always been my thing with Crystal Skull; everyone lost their shit over Shia and the aliens, when those things absolutely had their place in Indiana Jones (an annoying kid sidekick and the movie ending with paranormal phenomena), but what really drove me nuts was the sheen of hazy CGI fakery over everything. There was a feeling of real grit to the first three movies, and a lot of Crystal Skull looked like a video game cutscene, and not just during the effects shots either.
“Crystal Skull is a good Indiana jones flick”
Nope.
“The movie made 700 million”
So what? That just means lots of people saw it, it doesn’t mean *anything* about whether people liked it.
For instance, my money contributed to that $700M, yet I hated the movie. See how that works?
“Did those same detractors even watch Temple of Doom or Last Crusade?”
Many, many times.
Stepfather who died – he was a little kid when Marion married him. Oxley is sort of his surrogate father figure.
“Not much is known about the plot of Meg 2…”
And yet, in a way, everything is known.
Shut up, The Meg 2!
This is exactly the sort of movie that should have the most straightforward of plots but will end up having way too much plot in it.
“C’MON! ENOUGH WITH HOW THE OCEANOGRAPHER IS TRYING TO RECONNECT WITH HER ESTRANGED DAUGHTER AND HUSBAND WHO LEFT HER BECAUSE SHE FELT SHE CONNECTED MORE WITH PELAGIC CURRENT UPWELLINGS SHIFTING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE! LET’S SEE SOME MOTHERFUCKERS GET CHOMPED!!!!”
I want characters that died in the first Meg back with no explanation!
I had no idea that Ben Wheatley is directing Meg 2. I was never interested in seeing the first movie but Wheatley’s attachment to the sequel has me a little intrigued. He’s made a lot of small but cool, weird genre movies and if he was able to get an R-rating for this one, it might be a lot of fun.
“Somehow, the Meg has returned.”
Pretty sure Brad Bird filmed Ghost Protocol and hence the Burj Khalifa sequence. McQuarrie has directed every MI after (and did some rewrites on Ghost Protocol).
The Equalizer 3 needs to bring in Queen Latifah’s character from the TV show and they can call it Into the Equalverse.
if only Edward Woodward was still around. They could call him the Godfather of Equalizers!
Meh
I would offer that perhaps more than a third of these are not so much highly anticipated as inevitabilities that are foisted on a movie-going public that has become so dulled by repetition that we embrace any shiny thing we can get.Of the true originals (even if they are adaptations), two examples: I would say Barbie looks as empty as a doll’s head, while Oppenheimer – by the simple virtue of being a Nolan film (which, 9 times out of 10 are pretty phenomenal) – is going to be well worth the wait.On the other end of the spectrum, I see Transformers or Fast X and just shake my head, as those franchises so rarely do anything out of the lock-step of their concepts that they simply cannot generate any excitement in me. I become tired just reading their names.I am always immensely grateful for having had my initial impressions of cinema formed during the 70s.
I’m torn on whether Fast X or Indiana Jones 5 will be the biggest hit of the summer. I’m leaning towards the latter – the Fast films are usually billion-dollar films, but it’s been 15 years since the last Indy movie and the nostalgia will be extremely potent (I’m getting “Force Awakens” vibes from the trailer, but that movie made over $2 billion back in 2015).
If GOTG3 doesn’t clear $700 million, expect the “Are people tired of comic book movies?” discourse to go into overdrive.
i guess ‘of summer’ is the caveat here. i don’t think anyone’s gonna beat mario overall this year. don’t count out mission impossible, either.i am genuinely curious about indiana jones. i think it’s really gonna come down to word of mouth. people felt burned last time and while i’m excited about mangold the no-spielberg is gonna hurt a little (though it’s not like he’s much of a box office draw these days either)
Well people have been burned by the last SW sequels and Crystal Skull so maybe they will wait the reviews. If GOTG3 does make $700 million it will be a huge surprise and a big failure this is one of the last sure hits of the MCU there is nothing left after that but Spiderman. And yes people are tired of superhero movies.
A Transformers movie is happening this summer. I expect all others will be crushed.
I think “Are people tired of comic book movies?” will apply much more to a Blue Beetle bomb than Guardians. If GotG3 under performs, the discourse will most certainly be about that other popular talking point: How lackluster Marvel continues to be, post-Endgame. Of the summer’s 3 comic book movies, The Flash is the only one who’s potential failure won’t move any needles either way.
The Transformers franchise has been on a downward box office slide for almost a decade now, with “Last Knight” making $600 million to “Extinction”’s $1.1 billion, and “Bumblebee” dropping even more than that. I’d be surprised if “Rise of the Beasts” clears a billion dollars, something that I think “Indy 5″ will easily do.
certainly if you’re banking on indiana jones nostalgia i think enough time has passed we might be catching a nostalgia wave for the first set of transformers movies. if you were a teen when the first transformers came out you’re in your 30s now, but to your point if you were a teen when crystal skull came out you’re around the same age.
Funny Indy 5 seems on track to be the dud of summer 2023. Not that I’m surprised seeing the premises.Cheers
Can we stop with the fan-made trailers, please?? All they do is rehash clips from the previous movie(s) or from completely different movies. I’d rather have no trailer than one that I start and then close out of.Just say no trailer is available yet.
only when there are no more fans will there be no more fan trailers.
Wow, that is…..a lot of shit. 1984 this ain’t. Hell, 1994 this ain’t.
I’ll probably still go see Boogeyman, but not thrilled it seems to be so divergent from King’s original tale.
As much as I’d like to see Nolan release his movies during awards season, I very much appreciate the palette cleanse his releases provide, during numbingly mediocre summers.
Over and over again, TMNT films have failed to capture the absolute chaos that the Turtles wreak at every turn.
The Bay-produced movies were pretty fucking chaotic, as was the CGI movie from 2007 from a pure plot standpoint. Explain what you’re talking about.
The Last Voyage of Demeter trailer using Smashing Pumpkins just because it has vampire lyrics is really stupid. Otherwise, I’m intrigued at the concept of making this Dracula chapter an entire movie.
Pretty stupid but there were plenty of other bad, overused generic horrory things in the trailer too, so it works out.
There are a lot of big hitters for the teenage/young adult crowd early on…- May: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and Fast X- June: Spiderverse, Transformers and FlashI know there are a lot of other potentially box office hits… but those are 5 films that a lot of people are going to see in May and June before we even get to Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible and Blue Beetle (less so for Blue Beetle… but still a DC film). I normally take younger family members out so that means I will be spending at least £150 on the cinema in May/June (not incl. food, etc.). Obviously because they want to go… not me…
Is this just a list of every movie? How excited are you for a video game movie from the visionary director of Chappie?
Yes, I am anticipating the summer movie season with dread.
– 12 Sequels/franchise entries
– 7 Originals (to the extent that Pixar’s “what if X had feelings” is original anymore)
– 6 Adaptations (2 books, 2 toy lines, 1 video game, 1 theme park ride)
– 1 Live Action Remake
Can’t wait. Truly a summer to remember.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, Barbie: Rise Of The Breasts,