2017 is the best year in superhero film history, according to Rotten Tomatoes
With four of the top five entries in the ‘50 Best Superhero Movies of All Time’ list on Rotten Tomatoes, it has been a cracker of a year for superhero film fans – and Justice League is still to come
2017 is the single greatest year in superhero movie history.
At least, that is if you put stock in the statistics over at review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes which, following the release of Thor: Ragnarok last week, has just updated its rankings of the best in cinematic spandex.
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According to this super-Tomatometer, four of the five greatest superhero movies ever were released this year.
Ragnarok is currently No. 5, while also in the top five are this year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming (No. 4) and Logan (No. 2).
And the best superhero film ever? It’s Patty Jenkins’ summer smash Wonder Woman – a Rotten Tomatoes crown that brought social-media whoops from both Jenkins and the film’s title star, Gal Gadot. That title might even help Wonder Woman make its case for Oscars and other awards.
The only non-2017 film to crack Rotten Tomatoes’ Top 5 is 2008’s The Dark Knight. The Warner Brothers/DC film is in the No. 3 slot despite often being considered the best superhero film ever.
The standard metric at Rotten Tomatoes, of course, is the “Tomatometer” score, the percentage of reviews by critics that are positive. But with its “50 Best Superhero Movies of All Time” rankings that started earlier this year, the site provides weighted scores that adjust for the total number of reviews each film has received. That’s how Ragnarok manages an adjusted score of 105.67 per cent, while Wonder Woman tops out at 108.57 per cent.
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Under these “Bayes-weighted” rankings, Pixar’s 2004 smash The Incredibles – the top reviewed superhero film on the site based on its regular 97 per cent Tomatometer score – drops to No. 9 on the best superhero movie of all time list, with an adjusted score of 103.39 per cent. Iron Man is No. 7.
This year’s roster looks even more impressive when you consider that WB/DC’s The Lego Batman Movie sits at No. 10, giving 2017 five of the list’s top 10 titles. Among other 2017 releases, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is ranked No. 18. (Worth noting: DC’s highly anticipated Justice League arrives November 17 in the US, a potential top 10 contender).
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The previous contenders for “best year ever” would have been 2008, with The Dark Knight, Iron Man and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (No. 23); 2014, with Guardians of the Galaxy (No. 11), X-Men: Days of Future Past (No. 12), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (No. 15) and Big Hero 6 (No. 19); and 2016, with Captain America: Civil War (No. 8), Doctor Strange (No. 14) and Deadpool (No. 21). In other words: none of them comes close to 2017’s level.
So can 2018 top the head-turning 2017? The challenge will fall to The Black Panther, Aquaman and a host of franchise sequels including Deadpool 2, The Incredibles 2, Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
