I was standing in a packed multiplex when the trailer for The Odyssey finished and the room fell so silent you could hear a phone vibrate. You could feel the summer collapse into a single heartbeat—tickets selling out, debates sparking in the lobby, strangers trading hot takes. By the end of August, I had my ballot in hand and the staff vote had a few surprises for both of us.
I’m Cheryl, and I helped run io9’s tally: every staff pick, weighted and added, produced the list below. You’ll find franchises, auteurs, and two breakout films from filmmakers who suddenly feel unignorable. Read on if you want a quick map of where the summer’s conversations and box-office heat really lived.
Honorable mentions: Disclosure Day, The End of Oak Street, Coyote vs. Acme, and Toy Story 5.
5. The Furious
At the 11 a.m. screening someone clapped after the first fight and the rest of the theater erupted two minutes later. Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious delivers exactly the kind of cathartic, muscle-and-bone martial-arts choreography you came for, but it’s also smarter than a simple revenge checklist. The premise—a father racing through a violent underworld to find his kidnapped daughter—lets Tanigaki string extended single-take sequences and inventive blocking that recall The Raid and the late-career precision of John Wick. If you value kinetic staging and camera economics, this is a film that rewards repeat viewings, and it’s why Lionsgate’s marketing leaned hard into the choreography on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
4. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
I watched a small but vocal crowd leave a midnight show arguing about whether the satire landed or stayed campy—the argument split right down the middle. Jane Schoenbrun’s film is both a sharp Hollywood riff and a tender horror love letter: think scream-queen lore rubbed up against fandom as obsession and awkward first loves. Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder give the thing gravity; their chemistry makes the film’s satire feel lived-in rather than academic. Platforms like Mubi and indie festivals amplified word-of-mouth for films in this lane, and Schoenbrun has now joined a short list of filmmakers whose low-budget horror suddenly carries major cultural weight.
3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day
The concession stand sold out of MCU-themed popcorn buckets before the noon showing had finished selling seats. Tom Holland and Zendaya returning already felt like a bet that would pay off—but Destin Daniel Cretton’s direction, plus MCU cameos from Mark Ruffalo and Jon Bernthal, turned the film into an event with real stake. The script threads a fresh Peter Parker arc into a larger canvas that even connects to Jean Grey’s origin (Sadie Sink); that kind of cross-franchise stitching is why studios and analysts at Box Office Mojo and Comscore were tracking it as a potential domestic record-setter. If you follow Marvel on Disney platforms or scan IMDb threads, you’ll see why fans are arguing about tonal balance and Easter eggs the way sports fans argue over refs.
What were the best films of summer 2026?
They’re the ones you remember leaving the theater talking about: a studio spectacle that demanded IMAX, a franchise entry that re-energized fandom, a raw martial-arts showpiece, an original horror breakout, and a surreal slasher that felt both intimate and theatrical.
2. The Odyssey
The lobby line for the IMAX screening wrapped around the building and there were film students live-tweeting frame grabs before the credits rolled. Christopher Nolan took the summer blockbuster and pressed it into something bigger: a cinematic riddle with practical effects, ambitious staging, and a score that lands like thunder. The Odyssey isn’t just spectacle; it’s a film that invites debate about narrative framing and the ethics of spectacle—conversations that spilled into late-night shows, film podcasts, and Reddit threads. Universal leaned hard on theatrical windows and premium formats, and that strategy paid off in cultural buzz as much as box-office receipts.
Is The Odyssey worth seeing in theaters?
If you care about scale, sound design, and a communal reaction that changes your reading of a scene, yes—this is precisely the kind of movie IMAX and premium screens were built for.
1. Obsession
A midnight screening turned into a street-corner symposium: strangers trading theories about a single shocking shot for almost an hour. Obsession is the rare indie horror that became a cultural currency—Inde Navarrette and the film’s unsettling structure pushed conversations from review pages into group chats and fan threads. I hyped it last year; you may have seen it on Focus’s release slate or in festival coverage on IndieWire and Variety. The film earned roughly $480,000,000 USD (€442,000,000) worldwide on a wave of word-of-mouth that kept ticket sales rising weekend after weekend. Obsession slipped into culture like a virus that hums under every conversation, and that persistent hum is why it’s our summer’s favorite.
Did Obsession make a lot of money?
Yes—its box office run is one of the best examples in recent memory of organic momentum turning an indie title into a global performer, tracked and confirmed across Box Office Mojo and Comscore reports.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
So: a Nolan event, a Marvel crowd-pleaser, a martial-arts blowout, a surreal slasher, and a horror breakout—does that list match the movies you left the theater talking about?