Curated playlist
American sequel films
- Avengers: DoomsdayAvengers: Doomsday announced its central villain with a theatrical gesture at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024. Several figures in full Doctor Doom armor stepped onto the Marvel Studios stage. One of them removed his mask, and the face…
- Captain America: Civil WarCaptain America: Civil War arrived in theaters on the 6th of May 2016, carrying a question that no superhero film had seriously asked before: what happens when the heroes who save the world cannot agree on who gets to decide how? The…
- Avengers: EndgameAvengers: Endgame begins with a family disintegrating on screen. In its opening scene, Clint Barton loses his wife and children to Thanos's snap. Co-director Joe Russo called it "a very tragic scene to open the movie with." He said it was…
- Avengers: Age of UltronAvengers: Age of Ultron arrived on the 1st of May 2015, carrying a price tag that few films in history had matched: a net production budget of $365 million. That figure, drawn from an actual gross spend of $444 million partially offset by…
- Avengers: Infinity WarAvengers: Infinity War ends with its villain sitting alone on a distant planet, watching a sunrise. He has just erased half of all life in the universe. That quiet final image caps a film built almost entirely toward it. Released in 2018,…
- Aliens (film)Aliens, the 1986 science fiction-action film written and directed by James Cameron, opens with a woman who has been asleep for 57 years. Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, drifts through deep space in a tiny escape shuttle until a…
- Ewoks: The Battle for EndorThe film premiered on ABC on the 24th of November 1985. It was shot in the middle of 1985 in Marin County, California. Jim and Ken Wheat co-wrote and directed the project. George Lucas provided the original story. Executive producer status…
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King crossed the one-billion-dollar mark at the worldwide box office in February 2004, only the second film in history to reach that threshold. At the 76th Academy Awards, it swept every single one…
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two TowersThe Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers premiered on the 5th of December 2002 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, and what audiences saw that night was something cinema had not quite done before. A digital creature called Gollum spoke…
- Deadpool & WolverineDeadpool & Wolverine almost went by a different name. In February 2024, a title leaked online: Deadpool & Friend. Ryan Reynolds later claimed it had been the real title at the time. Fans reacted badly, and the studio revealed the actual…
- Transformers: Dark of the MoonTransformers: Dark of the Moon opens with a secret. In 1962, according to the film's premise, a spacecraft called the Ark crash-lands on the far side of the Moon, carrying technology capable of ending a war. President John F. Kennedy, told…
- Return of the JediReturn of the Jedi opened in American theaters on the 25th of May 1983. Lucas booked that date deliberately, exactly six years after the original Star Wars had premiered in 1977. Richard Marquand directed it from a screenplay by Lawrence…
- Star Wars: The Last JediStar Wars: The Last Jedi is dedicated to Carrie Fisher, who played General Leia Organa and died on the 27th of December 2016. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, the film is the second installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy,…
- The Empire Strikes BackThe Empire Strikes Back opens with a single haunting image: probe droids scattered across the galaxy, hunting. It was the 21st of May 1980, and audiences packing into just 126 theaters across North America had little idea that the film…
- Rogue OneRogue One: A Star Wars Story ends with two lead characters trapped in a citadel on Scarif, unable to escape a demolition beam. Felicity Jones plays Jyn Erso, a detained renegade recruited by the Rebel Alliance to find her missing father.…
- Star Wars: The Rise of SkywalkerStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker carried a net budget of about $490.2 million. That made it the second most expensive film ever produced. The price tag hints at how much was riding on one movie. J. J. Abrams directed the film. He was…
- Star Wars: The Force AwakensStar Wars: The Force Awakens arrived in theaters on the 18th of December 2015, carrying a weight that almost no film in history had to bear. Thirty-two years had passed since Return of the Jedi closed out the original trilogy. A generation…
- Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the ClonesStar Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones premiered on Sunday, the 12th of May 2002. The screening took place at the BMCC Performing Arts Center in New York City, opening the first Tribeca Film Festival. It benefited the Children's Aid…
- Star Wars sequel trilogyThe Star Wars sequel trilogy begins with a confession George Lucas made in 1976, before the first film had even opened. He told Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, that he was planning three or four entire Star Wars trilogies. He even…
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film)Star Wars: The Clone Wars opened not in a galaxy far, far away, but in a boardroom decision that surprised nearly everyone involved. George Lucas, watching early footage of his upcoming animated television series on a large screen, turned…
- Men in Black 3Men in Black 3 began as a conversation between two men stuck on a film they weren't sure they wanted to make again. Will Smith pitched the idea for a third installment to director Barry Sonnenfeld during the filming of Men in Black II in…
- Solo: A Star Wars StorySolo: A Star Wars Story premiered in Los Angeles on the 10th of May 2018. It carried a budget of nearly $300 million, one of the largest ever committed to a single film. The film tells the origin story of Han Solo and Chewbacca, set ten…
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny reached theaters in 2023, decades after Paramount Pictures signed a deal in 1979 for five Indiana Jones films. James Mangold directed this fifth entry, working from a screenplay he wrote with David…