The other day on The Huffington Post, I saw an article explaining why this summer was one of the worst for movies ever. Wait, really?

I mean financially, sure. I can understand that. But since I’m just a dude who enjoys talking about movies for pleasure, and looks at them for really fun and really cool movies (not just money-makers), I decided to do a post on why this summer was awesome for movies.

I didn’t start doing formal movie reviews until roughly the first/second week of June, so I didn’t get to talk about any of the May releases. Here I will give some brief thoughts though on those as they appear. But first, let’s look at the big picture.

In terms of summer movies, 2014 absolutely killed it, and I mean that. Sure, in 2012 you had Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man and Dark Knight Rises which were awesome, but they were also big names and brands that were designed to sell big. Then in 2013, you had a couple movies that were smaller, but still hits like Now You See Me, or This is the End, and of course the huge brand names designed to sell (Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness). But this summer was different.

This summer was a lot like 2011, where it had a lot of successfully rebooted franchises, only in this case it had those 2011 movies’ sequels, which were still huge hits. And you had some newer properties that were also really great hits (at least critically).

Seriously, we had about four or five GREAT movies this summer. Captain America: The Winter Solider was unbelievably cool, X-Men: Days of Future Past was extremely awesome, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was crazy spectacular and Guardians of the Galaxy blew my mind. Even Edge of Tomorrow I’d throw in there. I know I gave it a 4, but it was still a really intense and fun ride.

Then after that, you have a lot of GOOD movies. The Fault in Our Stars was heartbreaking and quirky in a really effective way, Godzilla was doin’ his Godzilla-thing! I know a LOT of people had issues with this movie, but I was really entertained by The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It’s the movie this year where I was able to watch it, be entertained enough and like it, but not love it.

Then of course you have your Transformers: Age of Extinctions or your Ninja Turtles, but to my knowledge there weren’t TOO many stink-bombs this summer. I missed A Million Ways to Die in the West and Tammy because I ultimately thought I had better things to do and didn’t need to review them, so they won’t be on my Worst of the Year list. Even what I hear is that those weren’t atrocities, they were just really bad!

And when you look at the year to come, I feel like 2014 as a whole is gonna be a really awesome year of movies to remember. Interstellar, Gone Girl, The Judge, Big Hero 6, Nightcrawler, Penguins of Madagascar. I can’t wait to see what other Oscar contenders pop up to surprise me too.

So overall, this summer had a lot of REALLY awesome movies, a more than a couple great movies, a few really good movies, and of course your fair amount of crap-cakes. This summer took the greats of 2011’s summer and combined it with the subtlety of 2013’s movie season. I think 2014 will definitely be one to remember, and I can’t wait to see if 2015 can top it.

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So guys, those are my thoughts on the Summer Movie Season of 2014. What was your favorite movie of the summer? Let me know in the comments down below! And as always, thanks for reading guys.