Summer Movie Scorecard 2022

2022 held the first full summer blockbuster season since pandemic lockdown, after several starts and stops: 2019’s Tenet gambit tested the waters but ultimately backfired, and 2020’s Black Widow basked in what felt like the light at the end of the tunnel, before the Delta surge swallowed up the nation. But with the 2022 summer movie season, it’s been full steam ahead, with the heat high and popcorn bursting to keep the blockbuster engine chugging. By early August, 2022 box office numbers had surpassed all of 2021’s total.

With that, we’re bringing back the Summer Movie Scorecard, which ranks by Tomatometer all the major releases during the season. (You can check out the previous editions: 2019, 2018, and 2017.) The start of the summer movie season shifts each year. Instead of a set date, it’s usually marked by the release of a big-budget, highly-anticipated film, and runs until the end of August.

This year, things kicked off with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 6. Some of the biggest movies that followed included the now-legendary box office run of Top Gun: Maverick, the meme-driven Minions: The Rise of Gru, and the dino-closer Jurassic World Dominion.

Only wide releases are included, which means 600+ theaters. And we left off re-releases, like Everything Everywhere All at Once (all A24 movies ranked) and Morbius (see: worst superhero movies). After that, we ranked them by Tomatometer, with Certified Fresh films first. —Alex Vo