The 25 Best Movies of Summer 2014

Did you enjoy yourself at the movies this summer? Is that a "yes"? Well, congrats, because, unlike you, most of Hollywood had a miserable time.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the North American box office revenue totals for this summer will be just north of $4 billion over—that's an eight-year low. Factor inflation into those numbers and you're looking at a 17-year low. Which, all said, should make Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller feel slightly less bad about Sin City: A Dame to Kill For taking over a week to make what its predecessor did in its opening day, because, you know, most of this summer's movies under-performed.

Those low stats, fortunately, don't mean that quality suffered along with studios' financial reports. Earlier this month, Marvel's atypical and altogether dynamite Guardians of the Galaxy instantly staked its claim as one of the year's best movies, as well as the best thing Marvel Studios has released to date. It's also 2014's highest-grossing movie so far, having raked in a whopping $275 million already. In the independent scene, Richard Linklater's unprecedented coming-of-age film Boyhood did gangbuster business, giving art-house frequenters another reason to retreat into their beloved air-conditioned cinemas after they'd basked in the gloriously over-the-top action of Snowpiercer.

Those are just three of summer 2014's cinematic highpoints. Here, we rank the 25 best of the lot, which, even if most of them didn't set banks on fire, prove that, sometimes, Hollywood's profit losses coincide with cinephiles' gains.

Director: Gareth Edwards

Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston

It's easy to understand why so many people complained about Godzilla when it opened in May. Coming from the indie scene, director Gareth Edwards brought that mentality to a surefire Hollywood blockbuster with mixed results.

Hoping to make a character-powered drama that also featured a skyscraper-tall monster, Edwards hinged the movie's human narrative on young Army man Ford Brody, a harmful decision since actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson's leading-man game is robotic at best. But with that atypically heartfelt and emotional handle on summer spectacle, Edwards also harkened back to the more patient days of Steven Spielberg blockbuster cinema, particularly Jaws; though Godzilla's CGI design was, and still is, awe-inspiring, Edwards bravely kept the beast unseen, save for a few quick, well-timed glimpses, until Godzilla's monstrous final act.

For moviegoers who appreciate skillful direction and intelligence with their buckets of overpriced popcorn, the lack of Godzilla in Edwards' Godzilla was equally refreshing and reassuring. Yet, those admirers were mostly spoken over by people who don't have time for such thought and care in their blockbuster films—you know, the same people who turned Transformers: Age of Extinction into the year's biggest movie so far.

See what happens when we're given nice things? —Matt Barone

Director: Jeff Baena

Stars: Dane DeHaan, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Matthew Gray Gubler, Paul Reiser, Cheryl Hines, Anna Kendrick

The world doesn’t need yet another zombie movie, nor another zombie comedy, but you know what the world does need right now? A zombie comedy starring the singularly odd Aubrey Plaza as reanimated, flesh-craving corpse.

That’s the bottom-line sales pitch for writer-director Jeff Baena’s Life After Beth, a quirky little genre subverter that breathes much-needed life into two mostly stagnant kinds of movies: the aforementioned zombie cinema and rom-coms. Dane DeHaan (Chronicle and recently Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2) plays a guy whose girlfriend, Beth (Plaza), dies from a snakebite, leaving him emotionally devastated. Inexplicably, though, Beth comes back, though claiming memory loss at first and not requesting human brains or entrails.

Their love re-ignites under extreme duress, blood starts spilling, and the end-of-the-world is soon nigh—yet Life After Beth never leans too heavily toward its darker sides. With DeHaan as the requisite straight-man, offsetting the film’s widespread strangeness, Baena’s living-dead comedy, the best of its kind since Shaun of the Dead, keeps its screwball tendencies front and center. It’s never too sappy nor too gross, checking both boxes enough to legitimize its romance and horror without stacking either deck too high. —Matt Barone

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard

Kelly Reichardt is a master at telling slow-moving, poignant stories about loss and alienation. See: Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy. She does it again with her latest feature Night Moves, in which Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard play environmental activists whose shortsighted idea of blowing up of a dam lead to serious consequences.

But no, there are no cop chases, no hounding by the media, and no helicopter spotlights involved. Rather, true to Reichardt's style, the consequences are more internal. Helped by strong performances by all three of the leading actors, especially Eisenberg and Fanning, the film's greatest villain becomes the unshakable guilt that eats away at each of the characters, and damn is it fascinating to watch it take control. —Tara Aquino

Director: Michael Dowse

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Rafe Spall, Jemima Rooper

Or Friend Zone: The Movie.

If Zoe Kazan's character, Chantry, in What If been played by a different actress, it'd be easy to dislike her—after all, she's basically leading poor Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) on, though without malice, with her sideways flirtations and beachside decision to go skinny-dipping with him. But Kazan knows how to find the perfect sweet-spot, giving Chantry an underlying kindness that makes her just as vulnerable as Wallace, if not more.

What If's storytelling is never obvious, nor does it pander to hopeless romantics or bottom-feeders who want their romantic comedies to play by the late Nora Ephron's rule book. It's also a step above forcibly two-sided efforts like Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, movies that try to give both their male and female leads equal attention yet still come off as rudimentary and imbalanced—OK, so Heigl's character is a hard-working independent woman, but why does Seth Rogen's have to be such a stoner movie stereotype? In What If, both Wallace and Chantry are unlike the genre's previous star-crossed romancers. He's a funny, charismatic, and non-frat-boy type, while she's an artsy, intelligent, but not all-together gal. Kazan's chemistry with Radcliffe is flawless, easygoing—their back-and-forth joking doesn't feel scripted, their unspoken affections don't feel disingenuous or staged.

It's impossible not to single Kazan out, though, especially after her similarly unique work in 2012's underrated Ruby Sparks. In that film and now in What If as well, the 30-year-old actress captures something profoundly original in the rom-com sphere that's equal parts old- and new school: She's got the smarts and quirkiness to play along with Annie Hall-era Woody Allen's lovable neurosis and the audacity to get potty-mouthed and bold enough to keep up with the modern-day Rogens and Jason Segels of the industry. Best of all, her indie sensibilities prove that she's not about to let paychecks sway her into making the next The Bounty Hunter or The Ugly Truth—Heigls and Anistons of the game, be damned. —Matt Barone

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Stars: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon

Comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon took a culinary tour of England in the 2010 film, The Trip. But this summer, they're continuing their hilarious jaunt through Italy, in the aptly named, The Trip to Italy. Director, Michael Winterbottom lets the comedians go head-first into an Italian excursion previously experienced by the Romantic poets. And, while Coogan and Brydon engage in a witty repartee, they also indulge in some of the best culinary creations the country has to offer. Between Winterbottom's picturesque camera work and Coogan and Bydron's hilarious banter, you'll feel as though you're tagging along in the backseat with them. —Hope Schreiber

Director: Alex van Warmerdam

Stars: Jan Bijvoet, Hadewych Minis, Jeroen Perceval, Alex van Warmerdam, Tom Dewispelaere, Sara Hjort Ditlevsen, Elve Lijbaart, Dirkje van der Pijl

Borgman, Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam's deconstruction of the “home invasion” horror/thriller sub-genre, defies categorization. All at once, it's a psychological horror film, a black comedy, a searing domestic drama, and mesmerizing fever dream. There's even an elaborate double-murder sequence that's up there with the most disturbing and confidently staged on-screen homicides. Van Warmerdam doesn't let you get a grasp on where Borgman's going or what in the cinema god's name his impenetrable film is; meaning, it's not for those who don't enjoy working their brains while watching movies.

Cinephiles who enter Borgman with an open mind, however, will be rewarded by an engrossing kind of disorientation and an exposure to one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. That's a compliment of the highest order. —Matt Barone

Director: Lukas Moodysson
Stars: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne, Mattias Wiberg, Jonathan Salomonsson, David Dencik, Charlie Falk

Anyone who's ever experienced the kind of teen angst that has you turning to Warped Tour moshpits for relief will appreciate We Are the Best! About three misfit teens who start an all-girl punk band in 1980s Stockholm, We Are the Best! captures the brutality of youth for those who don't fit in. Raw, edgy, and upbeat, the coming-of-age flick bursts at the seams with the kind of energy fit for a movie that showcases a bunch of pubescent kids running around in the world trying to figure themselves out. —Tara Aquino

Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Stars: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell, Wyatt Russell, Nick Offerman

If the idea of a 21 Jump Street sequel seemed gratuitous to you, you have a lot in common with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and their screenwriters. Meta almost to a fault, 22 Jump Street never lets you forget that it's yet another Hollywood sequel adhering to your expectations. Including purposefully transparent jokes about “red herrings,” “meet-cutes,” and other self-aware references, it's borderline O.D. with its wink-wink humor, but, damn, if stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill don't completely sell every joke, whether undeniably effective or slightly off-base.

Bringing their characters Jenko and Schmidt to college, Tatum and Hill carry 22 Jump Street with their improved chemistry; Tatum, in particular, has evolved into an imposing yet lovably gentle comedic force—he's Biff Tannen with a heart of gold. Wisely, Lord and Miller also give co-star Ice Cube more to do this time, and O'Shea kills it. Even at its most aggressively meta, 22 Jump Street remains easily watchable and endearingly goofy thanks to its A+ cast, all of whom make this unlikely sequel feel like it was the most enjoyable film to make this summer, save for Neighbors. —Matt Barone

Director: Charlie McDowell

Stars: Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss, Ted Danson

The One I Love is a difficult film to write about without giving up its goods, but let's give it a shot here. A fantastical spin on the tired romantic comedy genre, first-time director Charlie McDowell's film… Dammit, “fantastical” is somewhat of a spoiler.

OK, let's start over—beginning like many other rom-coms, The One I Love unfolds in ways that will make fans of Rod Serling and his timeless Twilight Zone series want to stand up and… Whoops, an even bigger failure to remain tight-lipped there. Hopefully, though, you're intrigued now. And if you are, here's the nutshell plot set-up for McDowell's funny, original, and refreshingly ambitious riff on a familiar kind of comedy movie. Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are struggling to keep their marriage intact, so on the recommendation of their therapist (Ted Danson), they head to a secluded house surrounded by gorgeous scenery to have alone time and work through their problems. And from there, McDowell and screenwriter Justin Lader use creative means to grapple with love's inevitable twilight phase, when those once-burning flames fizzle out and complacency breeds contempt.

To see why “fantastical” and “Twilight Zone” apply, seek The One I Love out immediately. —Matt Barone

Director: Josh Boone

Stars: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe, Mike Birbiglia, Lotte Verbeek

While you were writing this off as a remake of A Walk to Remember, you quickly realized that you've already purchased a box of tissues and are in the theater. How did you get here? Why is your popcorn soggy? Is that—are those tears? Yep!

The Fault in Our Stars, starring young Hollywood's finest, Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, is a heartbreaking tale of two purportedly star crossed teenagers in love. Oh, and they also happen to suffer from terminal cancer. Through it, they discover that love won't heal the entire world, not everyone will remember you, but you can make a difference in one person's life, and that's all that really matters.

If you have a heart, this movie will move you. If you're a cynical grump, Ansel Elgort's overeager loverboy character Gus will probably creep you out. —Hope Schreiber

Director: Lenny Abrahamson

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Carla Azar, François Civil

Frank is unquestionably one of the season’s oddest entries, but also one of its most emotionally sneaky. Michael Fassbender, perhaps rebelling against all of those big-dick jokes from his all-bearing performance in 2011’s Shame, plays the titular Frank, a strange guy who sports a papier-mâché at all times while fronting his band of musical misfits, the prig-rock group mask Soronprfbs. They (coldly) welcome in a new keyboardist, Jon (DohnhallGleeson) after their original ones tries to drown himself, and the whole Soronprfbs crew heads to a secluded cabin in Ireland to record an album. For over a year. Without getting much actual recording done. They mostly just wrestle each other, calm their disturbed manager (Scoot McNairy) down off potentially suicidal ledges, and watch in awe as Frank freestyles obtuse song lyrics.

And it’s all quite charming, with the all-in cast totally freeing themselves up to inhabit director Lenny Abrahamson’s weirdo world. By the time Soronprfbs manages to land a spot at the SXSW Music Festival, Frank’s more than established its curiously endearing tone, so when the band’s dreams come crashing down in Austin, Tex., it stings. You want to give Frank a big hug—"big" being the operative word, since you’d need to be Stretch Armstrong to wrap completely around that massive arts-and-crafts dome. —Matt Barone

Director: Bryan Singer

Stars: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Evan Peters

First and only complaint: this movie needed more Kitty Pryde. Seriously? You're just going to have her mentally transport Wolverine to the past to save the world from the world war Mystique may or may not start and not give her any credit, i.e., more screen time? That's bull.

But we digress. Aside from Peter Dinklage's groovy '60s haircut and Quicksilver's hilarious appearance, what makes this film so entertaining is the palpable chemistry between it's A-list actors. Without the obvious camaraderie between James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and Nicholas Hoult as Beast, the film could've easily slipped into mediocrity. But the X-Men are a team after all, and these impressive performances don't let you forget that. —Tara Aquino

Director: Joe Swanberg

Stars: Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham

Lately, Joe Swanberg's movies have felt like coming home. Similar to his last effort, Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas is an ensemble dramedy that drops you into situations that feel all too familiar, whether you're ready or not. The film follows Jeff and Kelly (Joe Swanberg and Melanie Lynskey), a young couple struggling to raise their toddler and tending to their demanding creative careers, only to have yet another thing to crash their home: Jeff's basketcase sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick). Irresponsible and unpredictable, Jenny inadvertently forces Jeff and Kelly to reconfigure their lives, while they force Jenny to get her act together.

Entirely improvised, save for a plot outline, the film feels authentic because everything about it is, down to a cast that truly seems to enjoy bouncing penis euphemisms off each other. It's honest and raw, and engaging because of that. Suffice it to say, it's one of the few movies this year that genuinely isn't bullshitting you. —Tara Aquino

Director: Gillian Robespierre
Stars: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffman, Richard Kind, David Cross, Polly Draper, Paul Briganti

If there's one thing that's super obvious about the film, it's this: This is Jenny Slate's star-maker. The ubiquitous comedian, who's proven herself with supporting roles on Parks and Recreation and Kroll Show, stars here as a twenty-something who finds herself at a crossroads in her life after a one-night stand leaves her pregnant. No, her life isn't ruined and this doesn't turn into a Lifetime movie. Rather, thanks in large part to writer-director Gillian Robespierre's brilliantly hilarious script, the film is as a weightless, as fun, and as comforting as your favorite classic rom-com. —Tara Aquino

Director: Richard Ayoade

Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Noah Taylor, Yasmin Paige, James Fox

A loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1846 novella, Richard Ayoade's sophomore feature—the follow-up to his 2010 debut Submarine—is the best Terry Gilliam movie (i.e., Brazil, 12 Monkeys) the former Monty Python member never made. Funny, surreal, and impressively otherworldly without any sci-fi visual trickery, The Double places viewers into a heightened reality that can be described as an urbanized remodeling of the industrial setting seen in David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977), right down to the constant horns that blare from off-camera, as if Ayoade's film takes place in the town neighboring Eraserhead's location.

The script, co-written by Ayoade and Avi Korine, is a shrewd comedy of epic fails experienced by Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg, his neurotic drollness utilized perfectly here). He's a cubicle dweller who wouldn't be out of place in Office Space; his co-workers rarely acknowledge his existence, beginning with the security guard who makes him sign in everyday and acts like he's never seen Simon before, even though Simon's worked there for five years. Par for the course, there's a pretty girl in his office (played by Mia Wasikowska) whom Simon adores but can't be bothered by his awkward attempts at conversation. His lack of identity takes a wild turn when new employee James Simon (also Eisenberg) shows up one day looking like Simon's clone, because, well, in a way, he is.

The British accents of Simon's colleagues imply that The Double takes place somewhere in England, but, really, who cares? Though it resembles our reality, the world in which Simon aimlessly drifts around feels not of this universe, in the best ways. The streets are fog-cloaked and eerily vacant at all times. The commercials and shows Simon watches on his rinky-dink television have the aesthetics of brainwash propaganda made in the 1980s. The office building where he works is part factory and part prison-like nest of long-running bars and corridors. If not for the sharp, purposely mean-spirited comedy, The Double would qualify as an existentialist horror flick. —Matt Barone

Director: Steve James

Midway into the documentary Life itself, which shares the same name as the late film reviewer's 2011 memoir, Roger Ebert's longtime friend and Life Itself executive producer Martin Scorsese recounts one of the darkest times in his life. It was the early 1980s, around the time that Raging Bull premiered, and Scorsese was in bad shape. His third marriage had recently ended and he was succumbing to drugs. The forces left the filmmaker in a deep, intense depression. Near tears, Scorsese recalls how one random phone call changed everything. He'd been give word that world-famous critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel wanted to invite him to the Toronto International Film Festival to receive a special tribute, honoring the superior films he'd made up until that point, including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull.

And just like that, Scorsese felt alive again. His existence was validated. “That night changed it,” says Scorsese in Life Itself, overcome with emotion, “and it started my life again. Granted an amazing amount of up-close-and-personal access by Ebert and his wife, Chaz, director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) spends much of the film alongside Ebert in the hospital rooms he occupied when surgery in 2003 for a cancerous salivary gland took away his ability to talk, and papillary thyroid cancer hindered his walking. Despite those ailments, the Roger Ebert seen in Life Itself is in incredibly high spirits. One moment, he's sonning the director for trying to crack a one-liner, typing into his laptop's digitally generated voice system, “I'll tell the jokes here, James.” The next, he's bravely allowing James to film a nurse sticking a suction tube through his neck area. Ebert is in visible pain, but James captures it all. The director mentions that Ebert sent him an email later that night that led with “Great stuff!” and expressed how happy he was that the film's eventual viewers would get to see something that no one normally gets to witness.

Near the end of Life Itself, as Ebert's condition worsens, he sends James another email. “This is not only your film,” he writes. Indeed, it's not—it's a film for all people, whether you're a cinephile or just someone who simply appreciates, well, life itself. —Matt Barone

Director: Doug Liman

Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson

It's a shame that this film got completely overshadowed by The Fault in Our Stars during its opening weekend because damn is it fun. Edge of Tomorrow is a reminder of how summer blockbusters should be: filled with Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, and action sequences and set pieces that actually look pretty damn cool.

Adapted from the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill, the story follows inexperienced officer Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) who finds himself in a neverending time loop during an apocalyptic war against an alien race. The world's only chance for survival, he must team up with decorated war hero Sgt. Vrataski (Emily Blunt) to blow up the evil alien boss. Once Cage and Vrataski meet, it's difficult not to get sucked into the spectacle of it all, and you cannot get enough of seeing the two together. It's no wonder that this movie has been called the best video game movie that isn't based on a video game. It's just as addictive. —Tara Aquino

Director: James Ward Byrkit

Stars: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon, Elizabeth Gracen, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, Lorene Scafaria, Hugo Armstrong

As it opens, Coherence doesn’t seem like a movie you’d find on any “genre film” lists. It looks and feels more like one of those pretentious, talky, white-people-problems dramas you’d come across at the Tribeca Film Festival. A group of borderline smug friends get together for a fancy dinner party and talk through their various relationship woes and general feelings. They’re all likable enough, though, to keep you from abandoning ship, but then there’s chatter about a comet that’s supposed to pass overhead that night. And with that little wrinkle, Coherence becomes something extremely weird, but also rather fantastic.

Written and directed by James Ward Byrkit, Coherence is an avalanche of subtly revealed sci-fi twists, introducing alternate dimensions and what could be doppelgangers to the mostly contained-to-one-location story. That’s as far as I’ll go descriptively, however, because the magic of Coherence lies in its mystifying strangeness, which unfolds over a tightly compacted 90-minute span. It’s one of the best science fiction movies to come along in years, one that’ll make fans of Shane Carruth (Primer, Upstream Color) want to invite Byrkit over to their own dinner gatherings and pour him all the Merlot. —Matt Barone

Director: Nicholas Stoller
Stars: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Ike Barinholtz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jerrod Carmichael, Lisa Kudrow, Carla Gallo

Neighbors is the funniest movie of the year so far. There's no question about it. It's okay to admit you were a little skeptical of the movie before you fell in love with it. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play parents trying to stay young by mingling with the new frat next door, led by Zac Efron of all people, only to find themselves at war with the incessant party animals? Sounds pretty hit or miss. However, naysayers are proven wrong when they realize it's chock full of original jokes, trippy Enter the Void-like party scenes, and a version of Zefron that erases your memory of High School Musical. Bro down to bow down? We see you, Zac. —Tara Aquino

Director: Jim Mickle

Stars: Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw, Wyatt Russell, Nick Damici

Fueled by a John-Carpenter-esque score, Cold in July is pure throwback bliss, channeling the man's-man action films of the 1980s and twisting along with its unpredictable and corpse-riddled plot. Without giving anything away, here's the brief set-up: Hall plays Richard Dane, a small-town East Texas husband and father who runs a rinky-dink picture frame shop; one night, an intruder breaks into his home, prompting the Richard to grab a handgun and, by accident, shoot the guy dead. He becomes a local hero, but his moment of glory doesn't last long. The deceased intruder's father, Ben Russell (Sam Shepard), is fresh out of prison and looking for bloody vengeance. From there, Cold in July's narrative never goes where you expect it to, see-sawing between genres (from thriller to comedy, back to thriller again and touching upon horror, and so on) and giving Hall, Shepard, and a hilariously free-wheeling Don Johnson plenty of rich material.

Having been a Jim Mickle fan since Mulberry Street, I must say, I didn't see Cold in July's genre-subverting excellence coming. It's nothing like his previous movies, but, at the same time, it's of a similar breed, never shying away from its brutality and including one of the most horrific images I've seen in a long time (presented via a grainy VHS transfer, no less, which makes it all the more unsettling). It's a remarkable piece of midnight-dark entertainment. —Matt Barone

Director: Matt Reeves

Stars: Jason Clarke, Andy Serkis, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirk Acevedo, Toby Kebbell, Judy Greer, Nick Thurston

This is what all summer movies should be like.

Matt Reeves, who previously directed Cloverfield and the excellent horror remake Let Me In, is at the helm of a long-intelligent franchise, a Planet of the Apes brand that, after having been tarnished by Tim Burton and his embarrassingly idiotic 2001 reboot, was given new life with 2011's unexpectedly stellar summer hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Sans James Franco, Reeves had a strong foundation to work with for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, bringing back performance-capture king Andy Serkis' evolved ape Caesar 10 years after Simian flu wiped out all humans except the few with natural-born immunity. But Reeves and company exceeded all expectations.

Largely set within the Caesar-led ape community, Dawn is an emotionally charged character piece in which the characters also happen to be motion-captured, computer-rendered animals. The beauty of the Apes franchise, though, is that the animals are no different from the humans, and vice versa; now that he has a family, including a teenage son named Blue Eyes, Caesar's no longer an ape grappling with humanity—he's a father and a protector, and Reeves devotes plenty of time to establishing Caesar's human-like troubles. Reeves pays similar attention to Caesar's rebellious righthand man, Koba (played brilliantly by Toby Kebbell), an ape whose seething dislike for humans comes from a life spent being tortured and tested upon by them before the collapse.

A complex character with justifiable motivations and shades of empathy, Koba isn't exactly a villain, nor are any of the film's flesh-and-blood survivors, who inadvertently disrupt the apes' woodland existence and trigger a “Can these two communities love together peacefully?” conflict.All of this talk about emotions and characters isn't what you'd expect from a big summer movie, is it? An art-house drama disguised as FX-heavy escapism, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is as visually remarkable as it is narratively sound. Serkis and his fellow Ape actors are at peak authenticity, while WETA Digital—Peter Jackson's effects company responsible for bringing Apes to life—raise the bar for big-screen pageantry. —Matt Barone

Director: David Mackenzie

Stars: Jack O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, Rupert Friend

It'd be somewhat impossible to make a light-hearted jail film, lest it be something like the disposable and silly 2006 comedy Let's Go to Prison. The environment behind bars is too raw and too dangerous to translate into anything other than, when handled by talented writers and directors, a film as provocative and visceral as the French knockout A Prophet (2009).

With the British knockout Starred Up, though, the bar for prison dramas has been raised enormously. More so a heart-ripping father/son drama than a straight-up men-in-prison story, director David Mackenzie's exceptional film centers on new inmate Eric (Jack O'Connell), an uncontrollable hell-raiser who's just as destructive as Tom Hardy's Bronson character but much younger and tragic. Eric's already trying life in the pen gets exacerbated once his long-time inmate father, Nev (Ben Mendelsohn), begins to pry his way back into his estranged son's world.

An all-around brilliant film, Starred Up is most notable for giving Jack O'Connell the chance to show and prove, and, boy, does he. Heavily in demand in Hollywood these days (he's the lead Angelina Jolie's next Oscar-baiting movie as a director, Unbroken), the 23-year-old Englishman roars through scenes with a fascinating blend of Anton Yelchin's boyish looks and Tom Hardy's explosive physicality. —Matt Barone

Director: Richard Linklater

Stars: Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater

It's not often that critics can say a movie's “not like anything you've seen before” and truly mean it. That's absolutely the case with Richard Linklater's Boyhood, though.

Boyhood's backstory is just as superlative as its on-screen narrative. Back in 2002, Linklater (director of Dazed and Confused and the Julie Delpy/Ethan Hawke Before Sunrise trilogy) started shooting the film with Hawke, Patricia Arquette, his daughter Lorelei Linklater, and then 6-year-old Ellar Coltrane; then, every year for the next 12 years, Linklater reassembled the same cast to continue Boyhood's story of Coltrane's Mason and his seemingly mundane coming-of-age. Due to his mother's multiple divorces, Mason repeatedly changes school and moves to new towns within his native home-state of Texas, becoming a man as he sees an abusive stepfather be terrible, looks up to his pop-culture-savvy older sister, and finds love and heartbreak of his own.

Nothing extraordinary happens in the nearly three-hour-long Boyhood, just all of life's commonalities, and that's precisely what makes Linklater's film so monumental. You see Coltrane evolve from a little boy to well-rounded 18-year-old, as well as chart Ethan Hawke's facial hair evolution. The overall experience is incredibly immersive—Coltrane's growth and Linklater's tenderly captured reality gradually envelop you in a marriage of Mason's journey and your own personal memories of childhood and innocence lost. —Matt Barone

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Stars: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Go Ah-sung, Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris

Based on Jacques Lob’s comic book, which ran from 1984 through 2000, Joon-Ho’s film is a 125-minute excursion into madcap dystopia, equal parts supercharged sci-fi/action movie, visually insane director’s showcase, and star-studded oddity. And it’s seriously badass. Set in 2031, after chemical warfare has left the planet frozen and the amount of living humans desperately minimal, Snowpiercer unfolds like one giant set-piece. The apocalypse’s survivors are stuffed into the eponymous train, a massive locomotive that zooms around the icy landscape on a path to nowhere. In its front section, the rich and privileged live luxuriously, eating high-end sushi, partying like drunken Manhattanites on New Year’s Eve, and constantly under the protection of armed guards and soldiers. Why the security? Because the train’s other three sections house its prisoners, its sick inhabitants, and tail's dirty, mistreated have-nots.

Once Evans and his crew engage in brutal combat, Snowpiercer’s lunacy kicks into full gear, and the ensuing film is less about cohesion and more for those who enjoy loudly saying “Damn!” while watching a movie. The film’s tone dizzyingly shifts to the point of bewilderment, volleying back and forth from gritty realism to hyper-stylized violence and vibrantly staged yet dark comedy, sometimes the latter two happening at the same time.

Tilda Swinton has some of the film’s best lines: “My friend, you suffer from the misplaced optimism of the doomed,” she says in one scene, relishing the wild material she’s been given. Elsewhere, Chris Evans keeps a straight face and his maintains his character’s steeliness as he delivers three sentences you’ll never hear in a Marvel movie: “You know what I hate about myself? I know what people taste like. I know that babies taste best.” That, keep in mind, coming in the same movie where he’s lodging an ax into dudes’ skulls. Chris Evans, much like Tilda Swinton and Bong Joon-Ho, understands that not all movies need to be tidy. In Snowpiercer’s case, the filmmakers’ sense of messy ambition is a badge of honor. —Matt Barone

Director: James Gunn

Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Vin Diesel, Glenn Close, Karen Gillan, John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Djimon Hounsou, Benicio del Toro

Fact: No film this summer could even touch Guardians of the Galaxy. You're witnessing a rare breed of summer blockbuster, one unanimously loved by critics and audiences alike. Hell, it's difficult to even pinpoint anything to dislike about it. It playfully teases nostalgia with its retro soundtrack, charms audiences with its sharp, witty dialogue—delivered by a ragtag team of outcast heroes you can actually identify with—and refreshingly redefines the meaning of superhero. You don't need Captain America's beefcake arms to save the world; you can be a monosyllabic tree with an enormous amount of empathy and still do the job.

Not to mention, it's the perfect introduction to Hollywood's male Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt. And no one doesn't like JLaw. Actually, scrap that, we're calling it here: Guardians of the Galaxy is the Jennifer Lawrence of superhero movies. —Tara Aquino