Poll: Favorite Blockbusters of 2015

2015 was a year of many blockbuster movies that made lots of money. Many of them did not deserve to make so much money, but a few may have been halfway watchable, and an even smaller number actually “good.” Which of the year’s mega-hits did you see? More importantly, which did you enjoy and which were a waste of your time?

I’ve taken a very loose approach to defining what constitutes a “blockbuster” here. Basically, any movie that grossed over $100 million domestically is on the list. For some of these movies that cost well more than that amount to make, a $100 million box office take is actually considered a flop (e.g. ‘The Good Dinosaur’). Nevertheless, for an arbitrary cut-off point, that seemed as good as any.

You may have seen movies this year that you consider better than any of these. Unfortunately, if they didn’t make big money at the box office, they weren’t blockbusters and are not the subject of this poll. However, if you were a big fan of ‘Mistress America’ or ‘Tangerine’, feel free to sound off about that in the Comments.

Vote for as many options as you’d like.

What Were Your Favorite Blockbuster Movies of 2015?

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I’ve only seen a handful of these movies so far. ‘Spy’ and ‘Ant-Man’ are lot of fun. ‘Rogue Nation’ is pretty decent. ‘Age of Ultron’ is terrible. ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ is wildly overrated. ‘Spectre’ did not live up to the superior ‘Skyfall’ but it’s not as bad as some people have exaggerated. No, I haven’t gotten to ‘Star Wars’ yet, and frankly I’m OK with that.

34 comments

  1. Kyle

    I’ve only seen 7 of the 12 or so I was interested in on this list…and my favourite hands down was Star Wars. First movie in years I went to multiple times in theatre and now impatiently wait for a blu-ray release to watch it again.
    Of the 7 I watched I’d rank them as such:
    1.Star Wars
    2.Furious 7
    3.Age of Ultron
    4.Spectre
    5.San Andreas
    6.Jurassic World
    7.Minions

    I’m still waiting to see Spy, Rogue Nation, Fury Road, Ant-Man, and The Martian

  2. NJScorpio

    Now, I haven’t seen everything, but I’ve seen a good number of the movies released this year (thanks to quick turnover to on demand and Blu-ray).

    Some favorites of mine were, ‘Star War: The Force Awakens’, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, ‘Furious 7’, and ‘M:I – Rogue Nation’…but, I can’t say they were my favorite movies of 2015. While they turned out as best as they probably could, which was excellent, they were also more of the same. Even the amazing ‘Fury Road’ just made me want to go home and rewatch ‘The Road Warrior’ for the 100th time.

    So those form their own category, ‘Best Sequels of the Year’.

    My favorite comedy was easily ‘Spy’, which while I expected it to be funny I NEVER expected to enjoy it as much as I had. I appreciate that ‘fat humor’ was not the focus of the comedy, elevating the movie in my opinion above most large comedian fare (see: Kevin James).

    The movie that was the biggest surprise for me was ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’. It felt like Guy Ritchie really cared for the era and material (something I am not familiar with), and it was heads and shoulders above any of his other post-Snatch stuff. I found the characters fun, charming, etc. It felt like a more serious version of ‘The Kingsman’, which I felt was too comical (that damn lisp).

    So what would be my favorite movie of 2015? Well, the movie I just watched two nights ago…’The Martian’. A fairly original story, a seemingly solid grounding in science, and compelling all throughout. While everything else out there felt like more of the same, this felt like just more of ‘Gravity’…with some ‘Apollo 13’ thrown into the mix. It was also a nice reminder of how excellent Ridley Scott is with science fiction, when he isn’t trying to George-Lucasify his ‘Alien’ universe backstory with the ‘Prometheus’ films.

  3. I LOVED The Force Awakens. Most fun I’ve had in a theater in a very long time. Can’t wait to go see it a third time.

    Spectre was the worst Bond film ever.

    The Martian was fine, but disappointing.

    I absolutely hated Mad Max. One of the most miserable movie-going experiences of my life.

    Haven’t seen any of the others. I’d like to see Creed, Inside Out, Mission: Impossible and The Peanuts Movie.

    • Eric

      Spectre was the worst Bond film ever? How many of them have you seen? Die Another Day, Moonraker, The World is Not Enough, both Timothy Dalton flics – The movie went back to standard Bond format. What did you want?

      • Chris B

        The problem with Spectre is its half of a great Bond movie and half of a bad one. Still no way it’s the worst though, I’m with you on that.

      • Bolo

        ‘Spectre’ is a dull, overstuffed, underdeveloped, mess of a film. And at 2.5 hours it gives you plenty of time for its awfulness to sink in.

        Stuff like ‘Moonraker’ and ‘Die Another Day’ at least commit to being campy and tell their silly stories with a reasonable degree of focus and forward thrust. ‘Spectre’ takes on all sorts of pointless plots and devices for no logical reason and then never makes any use of them. Every now and then there’s an outofplace attempt at humour, but most of the character interactions are charmless and the film is usually reaching for dramatic weight and social relevance it never has any hope of achieving.

        • Deaditelord

          I’ll agree with you Bolo about Moonraker being campy fun, but Die Another Day is an absolute train wreck of a movie; the worst of the series. Die Another Day has exactly one good sequence in it: the fencing battle between Bond and Graves (minus the unnecessary Madonna cameo). Everything else in Die Another Day is shit with Bond’s para-surfing scene being the low point of the entire series.

  4. Bolo

    Of the films on that list that I have seen, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ is the only one that really stood out in a good way. ‘Spectre’ is the only one that stood out in a bad way. The other ones I saw (‘San Andreas’, ‘Straight Outta Compton’, ‘Furious 7’) were all passably enjoyable, I got my popcorn’s worth, but didn’t make a huge impression on me. I do intend to see ‘The Martian’ and ‘Creed’, I just haven’t got around to them yet.

    And as for ‘Tangerine’ and ‘Mistress America’, I really liked both those films. Those films definitely stuck with me more than any of the big budget stuff.

    My favourite film of the year is ‘The Duke of Burgundy’.
    The runner up is ‘Sicario’.

  5. HuskerGuy

    Can’t believe Sicario didn’t make the main list. Movie was fantastic.

    Creed or Mad Max probably get my vote for best of the year though. Inside Out and Sicario are right behind them.

  6. David Staschke

    Kingsman: The Secret Service is my favorite movie of 2015 and I’m kind of disappointed that it’s not on the list.

  7. Deaditelord

    For the first time in years, I skipped out on the majority of the movies released this year due to a lack of time and interest. However, I did enjoy Mad Max, Star Wars, Kingsman, Rogue Nation, Creed, and Inside Out.

    Looking at what else I watched in 2015:

    Avengers: Age of Ultron – I honestly don’t remember much of anything about Age of Ultron. In fact, until I saw it on the list today, I was under the mistaken impression that the sequel came out in 2014. (Not a good sign.) Having said that, I seem to recall kind of liking Age of Ultron despite all the story issues. I probably should watch this again at some point to refresh my memory.

    Specter – While it’s somewhat disappointing to see James Bond moving even further away from his Casino Royale reinvention, Spectre is a decent enough entry in the series that avoids sinking to the level of mediocrity that was Quantum of Solace.

    Spy – Starts off strong, but a bloated middle section (comedies like this really need to learn to stick to the 90 minute rule) and a plot twist that can be seen coming from a mile away led to my spending more time fiddling with my cell phone than watching the movie.

    As you all can see, not a very large list of movies watched this year. Admittedly, I do plan on checking out The Hateful Eight, and the Revenant in the theater and will eventually get around to seeing Ant Man, The Big Short, Crimson Peak, It Follows, Krampus, San Andreas 3D, Sicario, Spotlight, and Ted 2. However, that’s still far less than what I see in a normal year. Hopefully 2016 will be better.

  8. CC

    Two series from the 1970s top the list? Interesting.
    Especially since TFA is really a remake of A NEW HOPE, and not a new movie at all.

  9. csm101

    1. Fury Road
    2. Jurassic World ( I need my dinosaur fix!!)
    3. Age of Ultron ( more for the experience of seeing it with my nephews and niece and the event itself ) it was a bit of a disappointment, but nothing had me more excited this year to get to the cinemas.
    4. Ant-Man
    5. Rogue Nation ( pleasantly surprised )
    6. Spy (much funnier than I would of anticipated )

    would be blockbusters
    Kingsman was a great time
    Jupiter Ascending – super corny but extremely entertaining and amazing 3d. I love that the Wachowski siblings do their own thing.
    Sicario – nasty little flick that resonated with me for a good while after it was over

  10. Elizabeth

    Jurassic World is easily the year’s most overrated blockbuster. A mediocre plot, flat and annoying characters and an unbelievable romance shoehorned in for no reason. I was so annoyed when rhe Jurassic Park fanfare started playing and they hadn’t shown anything about the park to be excited about. They didn’t earn that music. I was excited by the trailers then I saw the dull mess they created. As bad as JPIII was, at least it could see it as just using up the plot lines left from the original novel that hadn’t made it to film yet (the aviary and being actively pursued by dinos). Jurassic World took the franchise into Transformers territory, a bad movie making a ton of money from a gimmick.

    I think Fury Road was my favorite. I was actually surprised by how good it was despite all of the over the top trappings that surround it. Although it’s kind of depressing to me. I used to be able to watch the end of world apocalypse movies and think they were interesting fantasy. But having gone back to school to pursue a degree in biology, I know the world could easily come to look like that in a few generations. And it wouldn’t require a nuclear war either. Just continued apathy.

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