New Meta's Summer Blockbuster Rankings – 2026 | By: David Gibbens

School is starting back up, the days are getting shorter, and unfortunately that means summer is just about in the rearview mirror.

But before we officially say goodbye to Summer 2026, we've got some important business to take care of.

It's time to rank the summer blockbusters.

This was a BIG summer for movies, especially for the kinds of franchises we love here at New Meta. Superheroes, Star Wars, Mortal Kombat, Masters of the Universe, Pixar, horror and one gigantic Christopher Nolan epic all battled for our attention.

So which ones delivered?

Here are the official New Meta Summer Movie Rankings.

🥇 #1 – Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Yeah...this one wasn't particularly close.

Tom Holland's Spider-Man returned with a movie that somehow managed to make Spider-Man feel huge again while taking Peter Parker into a new chapter.

Brand New Day was everything we wanted from a summer blockbuster: big action, great characters, surprises and plenty of moments that had us immediately thinking about what figures we need on the shelf.

Summer MVP: Spider-Man

🥈 #2 – The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan making a massive adaptation of one of the oldest adventure stories ever written was always going to be interesting.

Turns out it was also awesome.

The Odyssey brought monsters, mythology, enormous set pieces and Nolan's filmmaking style together into one of the most ambitious movies of the summer.

Not necessarily the movie with the most obvious action-figure tie-ins...

…but give us some 1/12 scale Greek warriors and mythological monsters and we'll talk.

🥉 #3 – Masters of the Universe

By the power of Grayskull!

There may not have been another movie this summer that had more riding on it for toy collectors.

He-Man finally returned to theaters, bringing Eternia, Skeletor and one of the most iconic toy properties of all time back to the big screen.

Seeing Masters of the Universe get another shot at becoming a major movie franchise was worth celebrating all by itself.

#4 – Toy Story 5

You really thought we weren't going to talk about a movie literally about toys?

Woody, Buzz and company returned yet again, and Pixar proved there's apparently still some gas left in the tank.

Whether we actually needed a fifth Toy Story movie is another conversation.

But if you're going to bring these characters back, at least give us another entertaining trip with some of the most famous toys in movie history.

#5 – Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

Mando and Grogu finally made the jump from Disney+ to the big screen.

And while it might not have completely reinvented Star Wars, seeing these characters in a theater just felt right.

More importantly, Star Wars continues to accomplish something few franchises can:

Make us want another figure of a character we already own six versions of.

Grogu Toy Count: Somehow still not enough.

#6 – Evil Dead Burn

Every summer blockbuster list needs something for the horror fans, and Evil Dead Burn delivered.

The Evil Dead franchise continues to be one of horror's strangest success stories, somehow reinventing itself over and over without completely losing what made the originals so much fun.

It's brutal, ridiculous and exactly the kind of movie Evil Dead fans signed up for.

Definitely not the movie we'd recommend watching with the kids.

Definitely one we're talking about afterward.

#7 – Mortal Kombat II

Was it high art?

No.

Did we need it to be?

Absolutely not.

Mortal Kombat II understood the assignment.

Give us fighters.

Give us ridiculous action.

Give us fatalities.

And let these characters beat the hell out of each other for two hours.

Sometimes that's exactly what you want from a summer movie.

FINISH HIM.

#8 – Supergirl

This one is probably going to get us in trouble.

Supergirl wasn't a bad movie. In fact, there was plenty here that we liked.

The problem may have simply been expectations.

After what we considered the masterpiece that was Superman last year, the bar for the next chapter of the DC Universe was ridiculously high. Fair or not, it was almost impossible to watch Supergirl without comparing the two.

And while Supergirl gave us plenty to enjoy, it never quite reached the heights we were hoping for after Superman left us so excited about where this universe was headed.

Not bad.

Just the victim of some very, very high expectations.