Summer Superlatives 2026

Summer’s coming to an end, and for those of us invested in the health of the box office, it was a great one. In fact, the U.S. box office broke an all-time record with 4.76 billion! This made our annual look back at summer movie season all the more celebratory as we shout out our favorites in a dozen superlative categories. We give credit to multiple films in each, and not just juggernauts like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day; smaller movies you may have missed get their flowers too. Whose our class clown or cutest couple? And how many films from this past spring will P.T. try to smuggle in either intentionally or unintentionally? (He does both.)

This is a spoiler-free episode! We did our best to avoid spoilers throughout the. entire episode. Occasionally we issue an ad hoc spoiler warning, but even then we were intentionally vague.

Image Credit: Vanity Fair, New York Times, and The Hollywood Reporter

You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.

Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com

Get full access to The Long Take at thelongtake.substack.com/subscribe