Hello there, folks! I couldn’t be any more excited about today because the time has come once again for this site’s most well-known tradition: the Annual End of Summer Fan Poll! And this year, folks, we’ve got a significant milestone to celebrate as this marks the 10th anniversary of when I first launched this event back in the summer of 2014. Back then, it was simply a way for me to try and come up with some content for this site during a time of the year when there simply wasn’t much to talk about film-wise. But thanks to all the amazing people who’ve participated in the event over the years, whether by voting or by helping to spread it around on social media, we’ve turned this into a relatively successful annual endeavor of ours. And so, with that in mind, the time has come for the 10th Anniversary Edition of this event, which also happens to be the 10th time I’ve held it. That said, though, it should be noted that, under normal circumstances, this technically shouldn’t be the 10th annual edition of this poll. If this truly was an annual event, this year would’ve been the 11th annual edition of the poll whereas last year’s event in 2023 would be the 10th. But, of course, the infamously awful year that was 2020 nixed any sort of chance of the event happening that year so this year’s 10th anniversary event ended up becoming the 10th official one as well which… hey, if anything, does feel appropriate for the occasion.
For those who are new to this site, here’s how it’ll all
play out. The link below will lead you to a poll that I’ve set up on the survey
creation website Survio that will ask you to vote for your favorite film
from this past summer. You’ve got quite a lot of picks to choose from since the
list of options consists of almost every major wide release that came out these
past few months, but if you don’t end up seeing your favorite on the list, I
always include a write-in section for anything that I missed. As always, this
poll will focus solely on films that got a proper theatrical release, which
means that I won’t be counting anything in the write-in section that was solely
released on a streaming service. However, I will be lenient enough to accept
votes from those who saw any of these films through On-Demand services in case
they haven’t had any time to go to a theater; they can’t, however, be films
that came out before the start of May. The voting process will conclude on
September 1st and I will then proceed to write a Results post that
covers all the winners… here’s hoping that it won’t take me until the end of
this year to finish it like what happened with last year’s Results Post. As
always, it’ll be interesting to see how this year’s votes will go. Could the
billion-dollar juggernaut that is Inside Out 2 become the first-ever
animated film to take the top spot in our event? Will the equally huge Deadpool
& Wolverine give Marvel its first solo win since Avengers: Endgame back
in 2019? Whatever the case, let’s get this party started!!
CLICK HERE TO VOTE IN THIS YEAR'S EVENT!!!
But to conclude
today’s post, it’s time to do what we always do and celebrate this event’s past
winners by way of…
RHODE ISLAND MOVIE CORNER’S ANNUAL
END OF SUMMER FAN POLL HALL OF FAME
2014
The inaugural RIMC
End of Summer Fan Poll started out on a solid note with a relatively modest
43-vote turnout. It also gave us an exciting three-way tie for first (FIVE votes
apiece) that gave us quite an eclectic group of winners. You had The
Fault in Our Stars, the highly popular adaptation of author John
Green’s best-selling tearjerker novel about a blossoming romance between a pair
of cancer patients, 22 Jump Street, the rare superior
sequel to 2012’s 21 Jump Street, Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s unexpectedly
great revival of the 80’s series of the same name that launched the
career of Johnny Depp, and Guardians of the Galaxy, the
MCU film that took some of Marvel’s most obscure characters and promptly made
them some of the company’s most beloved heroes.
2015
The voter turnout
increased to 47 in our sophomore year of the event, but this time there was no
contest for the number one spot. With a TEN vote performance that
doubled that of not only the 2014 winners but also the two runners-up of the
2015 event, Mad Max: Fury Road was the visually
spectacular summer blockbuster that film fandom had been craving for quite some
time. This now begs the question… with the Mad Max franchise returning
to theaters this year with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, can it follow in its
sister film’s footsteps and become this year’s champion?
2016
Once again, our event
continued to grow in 2016, yielding a 58-vote turnout. This year saw a two-way
tie at the top with NINE votes apiece, which is also notably the last
time to date that we’ve had a tie at the Number 1 spot. But as I’ve always
said, this year’s results provided us with what is easily the most fascinating
two-way tie in this event’s history. On the one hand, you had a film that was guaranteed
to do well in Captain America: Civil War, the emotionally-charged
third installment of the MCU’s Captain America trilogy that kickstarted
Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But then, on the other side of
this predicament, you had a genuinely unexpected underdog in the raunchy comedy
Bad Moms, which starred Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and
Kathryn Hahn (which means you could argue that, when it comes to the reason
behind this film’s success in that year’s event, it was Agatha All Along… 😉)
as a trio of overworked moms who, fed up with the daily struggles of
motherhood, decide to let loose and partake in a night of pure debauchery.
2017
It was another
58-vote turnout for the 2017 edition of this event, which resulted in what I
would describe as a bit of an upset that garnered what would be the first of
two wins in this event’s run for fan-favorite filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Yes,
even in a year that saw the release of hits like the DC Extended Universe’s
first genuinely well-received outing Wonder Woman, it was Nolan’s take on
the evacuation of over 338,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk
that took home the top prize with EIGHT votes.
2018
2018 was admittedly a
slower year than usual for this event with only 44 votes placed, but this
year’s champion did manage to set an event record with TWELVE votes… and
believe it or not, it wasn’t Avengers: Infinity War. No, instead the
honor went to BlacKkKlansman, the then-latest Spike Lee
joint that told the true story of police officer Ron Stallworth’s efforts to
infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in 1972 by posing as a white man. Upon its release,
the film became one of the biggest hits of Lee’s career, earning him his first
Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and garnering much acclaim as a timely
reminder of the horrors of hate groups such as the KKK and the Alt-Right.
2019
After tying for first
place with other films in both 2014 and 2016, Marvel Studios finally had their
first unopposed champion in 2019. Garnering a new record of NINETEEN votes
from the equally record-setting 89-vote turnout, Avengers: Endgame
promptly certified its status as the biggest film of the year and the
immensely satisfying conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity
Saga.
2020
Well, as I’ve made it
clear numerous times by now, there WASN’T a winner this year because of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
2021
Thankfully, a year
off did not result in the end of this event as we were able to successfully relaunch
it in 2021 without issue. Not only that, but from the 69 votes that were cast
that year (nice), 2021’s champion came very close to matching Avengers:
Endgame’s 2019 performance with an impressive SIXTEEN vote
performance. This year’s champion? Cruella, a re-imagining
of Disney’s iconic puppy-stealing villainess… albeit now portrayed as a more
sympathetic rebellious anti-hero.
2022
2022 was a historic
year for our annual event as it ended up being the first year where we had a
turnout of over 100 voters (119, to be specific). And while it was practically
guaranteed to be that year’s champ from the moment the event started given its
status as the biggest film of the summer, one final day of voting catapulted Top
Gun: Maverick into the history books with a jaw-dropping FIFTY-SIX
(!) vote victory that probably won’t be contested any time soon.
2023
Think a 119-vote
turnout was nice? Well, how about an even bigger 122-vote turnout the following
year!? And unlike 2022, 2023’s race to the top was a lot more unpredictable,
with the top three films all getting at least 20 votes apiece. This year’s
winner ultimately scored the event’s second-best record of TWENTY-FOUR votes
and came from that summer’s biggest cultural phenomenon, the double feature of
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer AKA Barbenheimer.
But while Barbie may have been the billion-dollar juggernaut of the
summer, it was Oppenheimer that won out in the end (thus
becoming the second Nolan film to end up as the champ in our event) as Nolan’s biopic
of the events that led to the creation of the atomic bomb became the biggest
hit of his career outside of the Dark Knight trilogy and was the film
that finally got him the Oscar for Best Director. It also helped that it also
took home the top prize of Best Picture, which notably makes it the first #1 film
in this event’s history to go on and win the big one.
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