Fanboys Anonymous

Welcome to the annual New Year's edition of 6 Flicks Picks to ring in 2026!

This segment started out as a monthly column (and could return to that if there is enough support on Patreon!), but the new year always started with an assessment of the entire year, which is even more difficult in some ways.

The year-in-full edition of 6 Flicks Picks works the same way it always has. Rather than being limited to just six for this list like I would for the monthly editions, I'm going to be breaking down my top six as well as some supplemental groups of six for different tier lists, in a sense, of how much I want to see those movies.

Still, the general question remains: If you could only watch six movies for the entire year, which ones would those be?

Obviously, not every film that will come out this year is currently announced, and I haven't seen trailers for the vast majority of them. That is part of the fun when you can look back and see which movies you enjoyed more and which ones were surprises.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what makes my cut for 2026!

6 FLICKS PICKS FOR 2026

As far as January 1st is concerned, I don't have anywhere remotely close to my top 30 like I've had in previous years. In fact, this is the weakest year of movie releases that I can think of since the pandemic. That is really going to make me question paying for AMC A-List every month if there are stretches where I wouldn't see much value in seeing one film, let alone two to justify the price. How the mighty have fallen. I used to be such a movie hound, and they're just not releasing much anymore that piques my curiosity, even though I'm still going around on the lookout.

Miscellaneous Honorable Mentions:

If they receive good enough reviews, I might check out:

• Project Hail Mary
• Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
• Michael
• Masters of the Universe
• Coyote vs. Acme
• Disclosure Day
• How to Make a Killing 

They're all on the chopping block as far as me not really being too super into watching them, or not being sure if they just had some good trailers, but having at least some minimal interest.

Top Tier Honorable Mentions:

12. [TIE] Scary Movie 6 / Untitled Jumanji Sequel — I tied these, rather than to pick one of them to go into the other category below at #13, because they're about on par with each other until I see a trailer or more information. Scary Movie 1 and 3 are amazing and I absolutely love them. Every other Scary Movie film has been either meh (#2) or just straight-up bad. Considering how much I disliked 2025's Naked Gun compared to how much the original is one of my 5 favorite comedies ever, this doesn't give me a lot of faith Scary Movie 6 will be awesome. The same for Jumanji. The first of this series from The Rock was fun enough for me to see the second, but the second wasn't so great to make me HAVE to see the third.

11. The Mandalorian and Grogu — Speaking of liking something from before and being beaten down. I absolutely loved Star Wars from around the time of the special editions in the 90s up until The Force Awakens just ruined the series. Nearly every single thing that has come out under Disney has been something I either hated or just couldn't get into. Even solid projects like Rogue One, Kenobi, and the original Mandalorian seasons at points, just all lead to the terrible events from the sequel trilogy, and those 3 films ruined the franchise for me so much that it taints EVERYTHING in the series, so much so that I didn't even watch shows like Andor or The Acolyte. Why should I see this? I don't even know if I will. It looks like a slightly longer episode that they just want to try to get box office receipts from and I doubt it will help undo all the damage from the other films. Unless there's a scene in here that says "nothing with The First Order or Snoke or Palpatine or Rey or any of that garbage is canon and we're starting over from Return of the Jedi", I doubt my fandom can truly be saved.

10. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — The first was fun. I'm a Mario fan, so even though this isn't going in the direction I was hoping and I was pitching for (check out my layout) I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that this could be a fun kids film to check out.

9. The Odyssey — Christopher Nolan doesn't have a 100% success rate for me, but he's close enough that I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. For every Dunkirk that I don't dig, you've got something amazing like Inception. I've never been fond of The Odyssey story, but it's an epic that will probably be more along the lines of Oppenheimer, which even though it didn't rank as my favorite movie of the year, was certainly one of the *better* films that year.

8. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — All three of the previous movies were things I enjoyed. There's no reason why I shouldn't go into this expecting it to be as interesting as its predecessor.

7. Toy Story 5 — I have a lot of complains about Toy Story 4, and I think this movie is going to undo some of those while also creating some other problems. But it's Toy Story. Of course it makes the list high up. It's kind of crazy that it isn't in the top 6, but...

What Made the Final Cut:

6. Mortal Kombat II — Look, it's not going to be better than Toy Story 5 or whatever. I get that. It's not like the previous one was a good movie. But it's popcorn nonsense. I had a lot of fun watching that one, and sometimes, you just want to go to the movies and see some stupid action flick from your childhood.

5. Street Fighter — When it comes to my childhood, by the way, I was always more of a Street Fighter fan than a Mortal Kombat fan. That gives it the edge here, as well as how I'm obviously into pro wrestling (Smark Out Moment) and when you've got Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns among the cast for this, I really hope it's a fun watch, because this looks INSANELY ridiculous.

4. Clayface — Batman project? You sold me. Mike Flanagan is involved? Even more so. And it's a serious movie about Clayface? Hell yeah. I loved that same episode of the animated series that Flanagan was so inspired by.

3. Supergirl — I happen to be one of those people who really liked James Gunn's Superman, so even though Kara has never been in my top 10 favorite superhero characters by any means, I still value the property and I'm curious to see a film revolving around her.

2. Spider-Man: Brand New Day — My top two favorite superheroes of all time are Batman #1 and Spider-Man #2. I don't need to explain this.

1. Avengers: Doomsday — Just hook it to my veins. This isn't going to be as great as Infinity War, but it's going to be a mashup of a huge number of characters from my childhood as well as this awesome journey of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU has been in a rough state after Endgame, so I'm hoping this is what turns everything around and makes it all worthwhile.

WHICH MOVIES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CHECKING OUT?
TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Welcome to the ninth annual FANBOYS FILM AWARDS!

This will be acting more as a personal list of just the movies that I've seen this year, rather than something that attempts to focus specifically on the superhero film genre as originally conceived.

I invite everyone to join in on the fun by leaving their own lists and thoughts in the comments below to tell us what you watched this year!

FILMS THAT CAME OUT IN 2025 THAT I WATCHED:

28 Years Later
Ballerina: From the World of John Wick
Black Bag
The Black Phone 2
Bone Lake
Bring Her Back
Captain America: Brave New World
Companion
The Conjuring: Last Rites
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
Final Destination: Bloodlines
Frankenstein
Happy Gilmore 2
Keeper
The Life of Chuck
The Long Walk
M3GAN 2.0
Mickey 17
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
The Naked Gun
No Other Choice
Predator: Badlands
Presence
Relay
The Running Man
The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto)
Shelby Oaks
Sinners
Superman
Thunderbolts*
Together
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Weapons
Wolf Man
The Woman in Cabin 10

FILMS THAT CAME OUT BEFORE 2025 THAT I WATCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2025:

12 Rounds
All the Right Moves
Bangkok Dangerous
The Beach
The Bodyguard
Can't Buy Me Love
Career Opportunities
Cocktail
Congo
Days of Thunder
Dredd
Executive Decision
The Fan
Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades Darker
Fifty Shades Freed
Fright Night
Gigli
Heathers
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hudson Hawk
Hypnotic
I Saw the Devil
I'm Still Here
Johnny Mnemonic
Knock Off
The Last Boy Scout
License to Drive
Murder at 1600
Navy Seals
Powder
Risky Business
Sidekicks
Snake Eyes
The Taking of Pelham 123
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Taps
Timecop
Toy Soldiers
Volcano
Weird Science
XXX: The Return of Xander Cage
XXX: State of the Union

BEST / FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

I'm not sure I would call any of the movies this year S-tier in the sense that they'd be absolute top of the line all-time favorites, except maybe one closing in on that range (but even then, you'll see where it eventually goes on my 2020s My Favorite Movies of the Decade list:

• The Life of Chuck
• Sinners
• Superman 

Other A-tier type films (roughly an 8/10) from this year would be:

• No Other Choice
• Companion
• Thunderbolts
• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
• Ballerina
• The Long Walk
• The Black Phone 2
• M3GAN 2.0
• Predator: Badlands
• 28 Years Later
• Frankenstein 

B-tier (roughly a 7/10) would be:

• Captain America: Brave New World
• Relay 

C-tier (roughly a 6/10) would be:

• The Fantastic 4: First Steps
• Black Bag
• Weapons
• Together 

D-tier (roughly a 5/10 and the cutoff of what I mostly enjoyed) would be:

• Shelby Oaks was more interesting before the credits and then turned into the most generic horror film ever. Just boilerplate. What a shame.
• Presence had some interesting parts to it, too, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 

Beyond that point, all the other movies listed above on my watch list would be E-tier or lower, and there isn't much of a reason to rank them, as they were all disappointing if not horrible.

For anyone curious, out of the movies that didn't come out this year, my favorite that I saw was The Talented Mr. Ripley, to the point that my wife and I then watched the Ripley television series from Netflix as well and enjoyed that. Most, as you could see, were joke movies that we purposely watched because they looked bad, and boy, most of them really were that horrendous.

WORST / LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

• Mickey 17 sounded like such an interesting concept, and Parasite was so good, but WOOF, I hated this movie from start to finish. As much as I appreciate every shot against that disgusting side of politics, I just wasn't entertained by anything in this. Every character felt like something out of a "quirky for the sake of quirky" type of movie, and I don't vibe with those. I was expecting Moon, and I got Wes Anderson.
• Movies like Bring Her Back do nothing for me. I only saw that because my wife wanted to.
• As you can tell, I was on a Tom Cruise kick around the early summer. His early stuff was rough and hilarious to watch. Why are all of his characters douchebags that we're somehow supposed to root for despite being terrible people?
• Happy Gilmore 2 really took a nosedive for me after starting out kind of decent at the beginning of the movie. I'm just not interested in watching a film that revolves around cameos of golfers and Adam Sandler's friends. That does nothing for me. It isn't even a joke.
• The Naked Gun....no. You had a few decent jokes spread out over 90 minutes with MASSIVE stretches in between. The original is in my top 5 favorite comedies ever and something I still crack up at no matter how many times I've seen it, but this just wasn't hitting.
• The Secret Agent felt disjointed and lacking in plot 
• I was so bored watching The Conjuring: Last Rites that I found myself working on my own writing ideas in my head during certain scenes. This was just formulaic "uh oh, spooky vibes building up to a jump scare!" type stuff, and I'll forever say that tropes like "it's supposed to be creepy that a nursery rhyme is being sung by someone smiling" are as bland, uninteresting, and blah as "generic action scene with explosion" and "you should laugh at this comedy because someone was hurt in this scene" 
• The Woman in Cabin 10 and Wolf Man were so boringly generic. I've watched the exact same movie 100 times. They didn't do anything interesting, and everything they did was done better in many other films. I couldn't even tell you the majority of most of the characters in either of those films' names the next day.
• But holy shit, then, I watched Keeper. I was annoyed that I couldn't FALL ASLEEP in the theater. Five minutes in, I was already not digging it, and it only got worse as time went on. I'm not joking when I say that in a year where I watched the 50 Shades of Grey movies for a laugh, I was more engaged in that story than what was happening here. 

BEST ACTOR

WINNER = Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

EXPLANATION = I was so set on having this be Jack Quaid for Companion at the beginning of the year, but some other great performances just had to knock him down a peg. Major shout out to him, though. Michael B. Jordan gets the nod here for playing two parts. And Alfie Williams killed it, so that was a very impressive performance. Those would probably make my top three even above Jacob Elordi, and I think Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are a duo act of sorts for The Long walk. All great performances, though.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Alfie Williams (28 Years Later), Jack Quaid (Companion), Cooper Hoffman (The Long Walk), David Jonsson (The Long Walk), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Lee Byung-hun (No Other Choice)

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER = Sophie Thatcher (Companion) or Madeleine McGraw (The Black Phone 2)

EXPLANATION = Thatcher's been ragged on a bit this year for her acting, it seems, but I thought she did an awesome job playing a part a lot of people would have messed up. I'm not sure if I can give her the spot over Madeleine McGraw, though, as she stole the show for the second film in a row, and being at her young age, that could make it more impressive overall. Give that girl more roles, for sure. She'll win an Oscar someday.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Julia Garner (Weapons), Son Ye-jin (No Other Choice)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WINNER = Nicholas Hoult (Superman)

EXPLANATION = Best Lex Luthor we've gotten outside of the DCAU Bruce Timm incarnation. I LOOOOVED Hoult's version. Fantastic.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Austin Abrams (Weapons), Ben Wang (The Long Walk), Delroy Lindo (Sinners), Omar Benson Miller (Sinners)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WINNER = Amy Madison (Weapons)

EXPLANATION = A little overrated, I would say, but I do feel like she deserves most of the applause.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Sora Wong (Bring Her Back), Sara Sampaio (Superman), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

BEST STORY

This is an alternative to Best Adapted/Original Screenplay where the execution of the overall product might not be the equivalent of Best Picture, but the idea was there.

WINNER = The Life of Chuck

EXPLANATION = This came about at the right time, given my current depression and where I am in my life age-wise and, well, let's just say I cried in the theater and I cried when I watched this a second time at home.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Black Bag, The Black Phone 2, Companion, Sinners, Superman

MOST FAITHFUL ADAPTATION

Which movie felt like it was the most honorable to the source material it was trying to represent?

WINNER = Superman

EXPLANATION = That's Superman.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Ballerina, Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic 4, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Predator: Badlands, Thunderbolts, Wake Up Dead Man

BEST VISUALS

This covers special effects, cinematography, production design and even editing.

WINNER = Superman

EXPLANATION = Admittedly, some of the shots seem like they're filmed with a weird camera lens, but I am absolutely not someone who should be talking about that, as I do not have any understanding of that other than "that looks weird" or not.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Fantastic 4, Frankenstein, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Predator: Badlands, Thunderbolts

BEST ACTION SET PIECES

This honors the stunt work as well as the choreography and idea of an action sequence.

WINNER = Ballerina

EXPLANATION = This was the fight sequence film. For it to not win would mean that it failed on its very premise.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Captain America: Brave New World (really shouldn't by any means), M3GAN 2.0, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Predator: Badlands, Sinners, Superman, Thunderbolts

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN

This combines makeup, costumes and the CGI build of characters.

WINNER = Superman

EXPLANATION = I could nitpick some stuff, but overall, this felt like the type of world I would want to make a Superman film. A good runner-up would be Thunderbolts most likely.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Captain America: Brave New World (really shouldn't by any means), Fantastic 4, Frankenstein, Thunderbolts

BEST MUSIC

This category examines both the score and the soundtrack.

WINNER = Sinners

EXPLANATION = Score-wise, I would lean more toward Mission Impossible or Superman. I really dig the Fantastic 4 theme, too. The Life of Chuck has some great music in it. But when you've got a movie like Sinners that in part revolves around the music, and the music is that good, it deserves to take out the others.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = The Life of Chuck, Frankenstein, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Fantastic 4, Superman (for the score, not the other musical tracks), Thunderbolts

TELL US YOUR LIST IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Welcome to a special crossover between Fanboys Anonymous and my professional wrestling website, Smark Out Moment! This is the first edition of POKÉMON: WHAT IF, where I take the rules of the Pokémon franchise and apply it to other characters in other media.

To celebrate Pokémon Day, this time around, the question is "What if there were Pokémon trainers in the world of professional wrestling?" Which WWE Superstars would be the top Pokémon trainers that would be gym leaders, the Elite 4 and the champion of the different WWE eras?

Make sure to subscribe on whatever platform you're listening, leave your comments on the video below or this post, share this edition with your friends, and smark out with us!

Welcome to the annual New Year's edition of 6 Flicks Picks to ring in 2025!

I still wish I had the time and resources to go back to making this a monthly feature. While I cannot promise 2025 will be a return to that, given the state of the world in many different facets (as well as my own personal struggles throughout 2024 and seemingly, how things could get more difficult in 2025), I do want to put it out there that if I can find a way to do this monthly, I will certainly try. It does make it harder to do than in previous years before COVID changed how movie release dates are announced in advance and how theatres often don't stick to their releases, and will change them frequently.

With that being said, the year-in-full edition of 6 Flicks Picks works the same way it always has. Rather than being limited to just six for this list, I'm going to be breaking down my top six as well as some supplemental groups of six for different tier lists, in a sense, of how much I want to see those movies.

Still, the general question remains: If you could only watch six movies for the entire year, which ones would those be?

Obviously, not every film that will come out this year is currently announced, and I haven't seen trailers for the vast majority of them. That is part of the fun when you can look back and see which movies you enjoyed more and which ones were surprises.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what makes my cut for 2025!

6 FLICKS PICKS FOR 2025

As far as January 1st is concerned, here are my top 30 picks.

* Update Addendum: I completely overlooked "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery" is coming out this year. As I'm a fan of Knives Out and Glass Onion, I'll certainly be watching this. Insert it maybe at the #11 spot and push everything else down accordingly.

Bottom Tier Honorable Mentions:

30. Novocaine — Just like Love Hurts, this is a movie that I immediately thought I'd want to watch, but as the trailer progressed, the less interested I became. By the end of it, I'm on the fence, as it could just be too...I don't know the word. Not "silly" or "hokey", but the type of Ryan Reynolds kind of meta wink and nod sarcasm humor that I'm frankly getting tired of. The slow motion shot of the knife going into his hand, for instance, didn't make me chuckle, and I'm starting to think this movie won't actually be all that funny. But on paper, it sounds like something I'd like.

29. Paddington in Peru — Can I put this on the list if I haven't even seen the other movies, but I'm just going on the assumption I would like them since they're so highly rated? I really do have to just sit down and watch them this year before this comes out.

28. Trey Parker & Matt Stone live action musical — No name or any information about this, so I have to put it down low. But based on their track record, I think I'll be checking it out. Book of Mormon was so much fun and South Park is just amazing, Team America is underrated, etc.

27. Companion — Stop showing me the trailer before every single movie, as I'm starting to get annoyed with this. It seems interesting not knowing what this is really about. I want to be kept in the dark.

26. Mickey 17 — Based on the premise and how Parasite was so good, they've earned enough good will to get me to see this, even if the trailer didn't wow me.

25. The Accountant 2 — I remember digging the first one enough to warrant watching a sequel, even if I'll have to watch a YouTube video to refresh my memory of what the hell even happened in the first one at this point since it's been nearly a decade.

Low Tier Honorable Mentions:

24. Saw XI — All of these movies are the same, and they're not all that great anymore, but since they're a legacy franchise, I'm sure my wife will want to see this and we might have a fun time in the theatre with people reacting to the traps.

23. Black Bag — Let's see what Michael Fassbender and Regé-Jean Page would have done as James Bond, starring alongside James Bond himself Pierce Brosnan and James Bond's Moneypenny Naomie Harris. This took me by surprise recently, as I hadn't heard anything about it, but after seeing the trailer before Nosferatu, I immediately wrote it down as an option to check out.

22. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 — The first one was pretty dumb, if I'm being honest, but it was a fun time in the theatre. That's worth seeing a second one, so long as it's with a packed house.

21. Zootopia 2 — Solid first film. They've earned the right for me to see the sequel.

20. The Black Phone 2 — As will continue to be echoed, I liked the first one enough that on the strength of that, I'll see a sequel. I'm not sure how they can do a follow-up, though. 

19. The Bad Guys 2 — Echo again. The first was pretty fun.

Middle Tier Honorable Mentions:

18. How to Train Your Dragon — Three solid animated films. A live-action version of the first one, which was arguably the strongest of them? Thumbs up.

17. Nobody 2 — Let's keep that echo going. I enjoyed the first one, so I'll watch the second. There isn't much more than that. However, this is definitely going to be one that I watch at home. My wife didn't watch the first, wouldn't like it, so I'll just wait to watch this on demand at home by myself.

16. M3GAN 2.0 — This, on the other hand, will again be a theatre watch to get the fun reactions from the crowd. The first was the right type of silly for me when it comes to comedic horror films.

15. The Running Man — Can they actually take the Arnold Schwarzenegger film that had a good premise, but is mired by that style of schlocky action writing, and turn it into a Minority Report type of project? Maybe. Maybe not. This gets a midway spot until I see a trailer that convinces me to upgrade or downgrade it.

14. Happy Gilmore 2 — I used to like Billy Madison better, but I'm curious what the story is for this sequel. I hope I actually laugh, rather than feel embarrassed about the comedy.

13. Predator: Badlands — This ranks this high strictly based on me hoping they learned their lessons from Prey, which was the best Predator film since the first. I hope this is more like that and less like...well...everything else we've gotten over the years.

Top Tier Honorable Mentions:

12. Jurassic World Rebirth — Ugh. Damn it. You're going to get me in the theatre for this just because I'm a kid that was wowed by the first film.

11. Mortal Kombat 2 — While not a "good movie" by most metrics, the previous Mortal Kombat film was a fun ride and I'm down to see this.

10. 28 Years Later — The amount of times I can just repeat "well, I liked the first one/two, so I'll see this by default" is staggering, but...well...that.

9. Tron: Ares — Man, I wish this had Daft Punk on the soundtrack. I happen to think not only is that score one of the best in film history (yes, for any film, ever), but I think TRON: Legacy is underrated for a movie that massively stepped up the game from the previous film. I don't like the first TRON movie. Legacy rocks. I hope Ares is a worthwhile successor. It's a shame this doesn't seem to be following the events of Legacy in the way that I would have liked.

8. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina — As I wrote last year, when this was supposed to come out in 2024, I binged the John Wick films in early 2023 and was surprised at how much I enjoyed them. Having since also watched The Continental, I'm down for anything this world throws my way.

7. Karate Kid: Legends — In a similar vein to the John Wick series, I binged all the Karate Kid stuff in 2022 and loved it all. Well, not The Next Karate Kid, as that sucks, and I didn't watch the reboot with Jackie Chan yet, but Cobra Kai is amazing and I really hope this is more of that quality. I'm also very curious how this is going to tie into that, or if it doesn't, how they're going to explain why it doesn't.

What Made the Final Cut:

6. The Fantastic Four: First Steps — This is not at all how I want my Fantastic 4 film to be, as I wouldn't have gone with anyone in this cast except Vanessa Kirby, I wouldn't have done the 60s aesthetic, I wouldn't have set this in an alternate universe, I wouldn't have had a Silver Surfer that isn't Norrin Radd, I wouldn't have RDJ as Doctor Doom, and I wouldn't have even bothered to do any of this prior to Secret Wars, as I would have just gone with introducing F4 as the first film AFTER that...but it's Marvel, it's the MCU, and it's an important movie in the franchise, so I'm OBVIOUSLY going to be here on opening night.

5. The Naked Gun — Naked Gun is one of my top 5 favorite comedies of all time; possibly #2, behind Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The other 3 in the running, for anyone who is curious, are Not Another Teen Movie, Dumb & Dumber, and Clerks. Considering 3 of those are spoof films, that says a lot. Normally, I wouldn't be down for this type of reboot, and I'm nervous this is going to be more of a Scary Movie 4 situation rather than a Scary Movie 1 or 3 (two other spoof films I love), but Liam Neeson has great potential to have the sort of delivery that will work for this. Please just make it like the first one and not even the Naked Gun sequels, that I feel are just shit in comparison to how good the first one is. I don't want Epic Movie or Superhero Movie levels of crap. If so, this is going to be my most disappointing movie of 2025.

4. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning — These movies keep killing it. I'm excited and anxious about the grand finale, but I trust them to deliver.

3. Captain America: Brave New World — All these rewrites have me nervous, and I'm not particularly sold on this concept being the best thing going forward, but you had me at MCU.

2. Thunderbolts* — After seeing the trailers for all the MCU movies coming out this year, this one seems the best. If you count Daredevil: Born Again into the mix, though, that one wins. But that's not a film, so it doesn't go on this list. I hope we get a proper Sentry.

1. Superman —LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They even have a perfect tagline in "Look up". While some of the choices aren't the ones I'd have made, like having the red trunks and putting Guy Gardner and such in this, the trailer was awesome, and I think James Gunn is going to knock this out of the park. I'm so down for optimistic, hopeful, inspiring Superman, especially after the shit fest that was 2024 and the impending doom of 2025 in the real world.

WHICH MOVIES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CHECKING OUT?
TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Welcome to the eighth annual FANBOYS FILM AWARDS!

This will be acting more as a personal list of just the movies that I've seen this year, rather than something that attempts to focus specifically on the superhero film genre as originally conceived.

I invite everyone to join in on the fun by leaving their own lists and thoughts in the comments below to tell us what you watched this year!

FILMS THAT CAME OUT IN 2024 THAT I WATCHED:

A Quiet Place: Day One
Abigail
Alien: Romulus
Argylle
Beekeeper
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
Blink Twice
Carry-On
Challengers
Civil War
Conclave
Cuckoo
Deadpool and Wolverine
Exhuma
The First Omen
The Front Room
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Heretic
Humane
Imaginary
Immaculate
The I.S.S.
It's What's Inside
Joker: Folie à Deux
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (Parts One, Two and Three)
Kraven the Hunter
Late Night with the Devil
Longlegs
Madame Web
MaXXXine
Monkey Man
My Old Ass
Never Let Go
Nosferatu
Oddity
The Park Maniac
Ricky Stanicky
Road House
Saturday Night
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Speak No Evil
Transformers One
Trap
Twisters
Venom: The Last Dance
Y2K

FILMS THAT CAME OUT BEFORE 2024 THAT I WATCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2024:

2 Fast 2 Furious
Adventures in Babysitting
All of Us Strangers
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Beyond the Law
Black Eagle
Blade
Blade II
Blade Trinity
Burlesque
City of God
Countdown
Crank
Crank: High Voltage
Demolition Man
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
DOA: Dead or Alive
Dream Scenario
Dreamscape
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
The Expendables 2
The Expendables 3
F9: The Fast Saga
Fast & Furious
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Fast Five
Fast X
The Fast and the Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Fate of the Furious
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Game
Glitter
Hackers
The Handmaiden
The Holdovers
Judge Dredd
Krull
The Lawnmower Man
Lone Wolf McQuade
The Manhattan Project
The Marine
Maximum Overdrive
McBain
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Monolith
Nine Days
The One I Love
Paradise
The Phantom
Point Break
Pokemon 3: The Movie
Rollerball (2002)
Safety Not Guaranteed
Showdown in Little Tokyo
Showgirls
Soldier
Speed
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Spirit
Steel
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Streets of Fire
Sudden Death
Tango & Cash
Tall Tale
They Live
Twilight
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2
Twilight: Eclipse
Twilight: New Moon
Twin Dragons
What You Wish For
Willow
Wounds
XXX
You'll Never Find Me
The Zone of Interest

BEST / FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

No movies this year would cross over into S-tier alignment, sadly. It wasn't a particularly strong year for movies. Even the ones I did enjoy and will watch more than once are not going to be on my "all-time OMFG I love it so much" type of list. But of course, you can see where everything ranks on my 2020s My Favorite Movies of the Decade list as well as this one.

So in regards to S-tier:

• n/a
  

Other A-tier type films (roughly an 8/10) from this year would be:

• Civil War
• Deadpool and Wolverine
• Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
• Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
•  Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part One & Three
  
• Late Night with the Devil
• Alien: Romulus
• A Quiet Place: Day One
  
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• My Old Ass
  
• If we're not limiting it to 2024, then we can throw in The Holdovers for sure (as mentioned in last year's article)
  

B-tier (roughly a 7/10) would be:

• Kraven the Hunter
• Venom: The Last Dance
• Abigail
• Blink Twice
• Challengers
• Humane
  
• Saturday Night
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Beyond that point, all the other movies listed above on my watch list would be C-tier or lower, and there isn't much of a reason to rank them, as they were all disappointing and I'll never bother with them again.

WORST / LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

• I was SO disappointed with Argylle. But, to be honest, that's something I saw coming from a mile away, which is why I didn't bother seeing it in theaters.
  
• Madame Web was just atrocious. Sony should be ashamed for themselves. How did this even get released when we're in an age where so many other movies are being shelved and become tax write-offs?
  
• Everyone made such a fuss over Longlegs, and that's all it was? In typical fashion, mostly all of the horror films my wife convinced me to watch are ones that I disliked, as it's not my thing, but that one looked more interesting and had more hype to it and was very disappointing. At least Late Night with the Devil was solid.
  
• How was Joker: Folie à Deux that bad? I only liked ONE scene in the film (the Gary Puddles court room scene). This was such a flop that it feels like they made it bad on purpose.
• Trap felt like it wanted to be 3 movies, and the only one of them that was interesting is the one that ended first.
  

BEST ACTOR

WINNER = David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus)

EXPLANATION = I nearly gave this to Dastmalchian, since he's the true lead, but I can't overlook just how fun David Jonsson was as Andy. He was easily my favorite character of the film and he nailed being an android so well.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil), Gabriel LaBelle (Saturday Night), Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER = Maisy Stella (My Old Ass)

EXPLANATION = To be perfectly honest, no female performances in the films I saw that came out in 2024 resonated with me all that much to be worthy of this type of top-billing major shout out. I tend to watch a lot of movies that don't have those parts written particularly well for any gravitas, as superhero films and whatnot aren't going to be where you find those. I could have easily found Maisy Stella's character obnoxious or annoying in My Old Ass, though, and I didn't at all, so I have to give her a shout out.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus), Zendaya (Challengers)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WINNER = Ian Bliss (Late Night with the Devil), Josh Quong Tart (Late Night with the Devil), Cory Michael Smith (Saturday Night)

EXPLANATION = I have to give a tie to these two for being such big standouts in Late Night with the Devil in a way that made me feel like they were JUST the characters, as opposed to actors playing those parts. That helped the reality of the film in and of itself. / If I could just pick an ensemble cast, though, Saturday Night was just chock full of people doing amazing jobs portraying their characters. Actually, on second thought, I'm going to make this a three-way tie and also put Cory Michael Smith on there for his portrayal of Chevy Chase, as he was the best standout among an amazing cast and deserves some bonus credit.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Lamorne Morris (Saturday Night), Matt Wood (Saturday Night), Nicholas Braun (Saturday Night), Nicholas Podany (Saturday Night), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Civil War)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WINNER = Catherine O'Hara (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)

EXPLANATION = She stepped back into this role and perfectly fit exactly as she had in the original. Great job for a goofy character.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Alisha Weir (Abigail), Cailee Spaeny (Civil War), Ella Hunt (Saturday Night), Kathryn Hunter (The Front Room),

BEST STORY

This is an alternative to Best Adapted/Original Screenplay where the execution of the overall product might not be the equivalent of Best Picture, but the idea was there.

WINNER = Civil War

EXPLANATION = Good lord, I did not anticipate that by the end of this year, I would be more nervous that this is going to happen, instead of how I was originally thinking "Wow, this is such a good cautionary tale, but I'm sure in November, things are going to go in the right direction and we won't have to worry about this." Ugh. I hate this world. But I thought this movie was the overall best that I saw this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Deadpool and Wolverine, My Old Ass

MOST FAITHFUL ADAPTATION

Which movie felt like it was the most honorable to the source material it was trying to represent?

WINNER = Deadpool and Wolverine

EXPLANATION = They knew what people wanted. They gave it to them. As a hardcore geek that this movie was specifically made for, this spoke to me on that level. I did really like a lot of the honorable mentions here, and any one of them could have earned this win in any other year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Sonic the Hedgehog 3

BEST VISUALS

This covers special effects, cinematography, production design and even editing.

WINNER = Uh....

EXPLANATION = By the end of the year, it's actually difficult for me to remember the specifics of these films, so just check the honorable mentions and pick from there. I'd have to go back and compare, but I do know that it would be between these options.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Alien: Romulus, Civil War, Deadpool and Wolverine, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

BEST ACTION SET PIECES

This honors the stunt work as well as the choreography and idea of an action sequence.

WINNER = Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

EXPLANATION = I nearly gave this to Civil War just for standing out among the pack. But at the end of the day, a bunch of silly, stupid monsters went smashy smashy on each other and the scope of that beats out the others.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Alien: Romulus, Civil War, Deadpool and Wolverine, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN

This combines makeup, costumes and the CGI build of characters.

WINNER = Deadpool and Wolverine

EXPLANATION = How did Gambit simultaneously look perfect and ridiculous at the same time? We finally got Wolverine in his costume (and multiple others, as well). I geeked out over stuff in this movie, for sure.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog 3

BEST MUSIC

This category examines both the score and the soundtrack.

WINNER = Deadpool and Wolverine

EXPLANATION = I would give this to Ghostbusters if we went on score alone, but you can't deny how popular the music from Deadpool was able to capture people's attention. No way in hell was I going to give his to Joker. YEEEEEESH.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

To be perfectly honest, this wasn't a particularly memorable year for any of these facets. While there are movies that I really enjoyed, 2024 is going down as more of an underwhelming list than I had anticipated, which makes me sad. 2024 in general, just in life and everything surrounding it, was extremely rough for me, and this pretty much follows suit, unfortunately.

TELL US YOUR LIST IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Welcome to the annual New Year's edition of 6 Flicks Picks to ring in 2024!

I miss the days when this used to be a monthly feature. Not only was that fun to break down, but it allowed me a better understanding of each movie being released each month. However, COVID killed that, and the strikes from 2023 had another huge problem with releases.

These days, not only are movies not being released when they said they would be, but they're not even giving them updated release dates until close to that time frame. Then, they're only saying they're delayed, but not giving new dates.

That makes it far too stressful and difficult to break down like I used to, as I can't keep track of these movies, let alone keep wasting time double checking updates.

With that being said, the year-in-full edition of 6 Flicks Picks works the same way it always has. Rather than being limited to just six for this list, I'm going to be breaking down my top six as well as some supplemental groups of six for different tier lists, in a sense, of how much I want to see those movies.

Still, the general question remains: If you could only watch six movies for the entire year, which ones would those be?

Obviously, not every film that will come out this year is currently announced, and I haven't seen trailers for the vast majority of them. That is part of the fun when you can look back and see which movies you enjoyed more and which ones were surprises.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what makes my cut for 2024!

6 FLICKS PICKS FOR 2024

As far as January 1st is concerned, here are my top 24 picks, as I couldn't quite get to 30.

Note: I'm working under the assumption that Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse isn't going to be released this year. It seems more likely for 2025. However, if that does end up being released in 2024, you might as well put that as the #1 spot.

Bottom Tier Honorable Mentions:

• Saw XI, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Bad Boys 4, The Beekeeper, Borderlands, Love Lies Bleeding and Imaginary are on my "eh...idk, maybe" list.
  

Low Tier Honorable Mentions:

24. Transformers One — I have a feeling this is a movie I'll end up NOT watching, but if it gets any buzz, I'll check it out. Transformers wasn't my favorite franchise, but I did used to like it, and the first Michael Bay film is good. It's a shame everything that came after that was disappointing to awful. With this being an animated prequel, maybe it'll give everyone the "constantly fighting robots" aspect they always want.

23. Inside Out 2 — I'm not as massively in love with the first one as a lot of people are, but it was still good enough for me to see the follow-up.

22. Spaceman — Is this going to be the type of film that makes me interested with the super fast teaser, and then, if I find out more information about it, I'll be less interested? Maybe. So maybe I'll not bother with that and I'll just watch it when it comes out.

21. Mufasa: The Lion King — The Lion King in animated form is one of my 3 favorite Disney/Pixar films. The pseudo-live action version doesn't hold a candle. Still, maybe there's a story to tell with Mufasa's backstory. At least, on a weak year like this, this makes the list.

20. Madame Web — Yikes...this is going to be awful. There's no way this is even a serviceable movie, let alone a good Spider-Man series film.

19. Road House — The original is ridiculous, but it was a fun watch to check out just to laugh. Out of pure curiosity of how they're remaking it, I'd like to see this and compare it.

Middle Tier Honorable Mentions:

18. Kraven the Hunter — I'll copy and paste what I said last year, when this was supposed to be released, and also echo the Madame Web entry. This is the section we call "you've burned me too much in the past, but I'm going to see your shitty film because I'm a fan of the source material." There's no way in hell Sony pumped out a halfway decent movie with Kraven. It's not happening. But I'll sit through 2 hours of this crap nevertheless.

17. IF — I have a feeling this might be a little too much of the same Ryan Reynolds joke style, but I'll be damned if I didn't come out of this trailer thinking there was potential. Even if it's just for a few gags, I think I'll enjoy this.

16. The Fall Guy — If done well, this could be a really fun send-up of various tropes in the action genre, and even the comedy-action genre. If done poorly, it's just going to be a one-note movie that takes forever to end. But I'm banking on Ryan Gosling doing a great job in pulling it off.

15. I.S.S. — COOL IDEA!!! I'm sold.

14. Civil War — Potentially ham-fisted with a message that will beat you over the head. I'm worried about that. But A24 makes some good movies here and there. Maybe this is their rendition of The Purge?

13. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F — Those 3 movies are overrated, but I still watched all 3 of them. Might as well watch the fourth, if not just for the theme song.

Top Tier Honorable Mentions:

12. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga — Fury Road was SURPRISINGLY good. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this could rock, too. But I can't say it's as high up on the list compared to some other series.

11. A Quiet Place: Day One — For instance, A Quiet Place has 2 really solid movies. This might be the third to round it out. What even is the story? Doesn't matter. It's going to be handled by the same team, so it'd be weird if it was suddenly a bad film.

10. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 — Granted, I'm not as into Shadow as I would have liked this movie taking a different direction, being about Knuckles and not having him in #2. But if they pulled off the previous 2, then I'm down to see #3 by proxy. That's obviously the recurring theme of this list, isn't it?

9. Venom 3 — Speaking of that, the previous two Venom films aren't GREAT, but they do the job enough for me to see Venom 3. Three different Spider-Man spin-off movies this year. Crazy. Venom's always been one of my favorite characters, so he gets a little leeway. Plus, Venom 1 is better than Morbius, for example.

8. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire — Big monsters go smashy smashy. I'd imagine this won't be as good as Godzilla Minus One, but holy shit did that take me by surprise in the first place.

7. Argylle — Kingsman is awesome. Give me more of that. I'm not sold on the cat jokes in this, but the rest of it should be a fun ride.

What Made the Final Cut:

6. Ballerina — I finally watched the John Wick films before #4 came out. Guess what. They rock. After watching The Continental as well, I firmly have to put Ballerina on the top list, as they've got a great track record so far.

5. Untitled Karate Kid Movie — How is this not connected to Cobra Kai? Is that going to be a mistake? I've loved Cobra Kai. Once again, like John Wick, binging all the content in a short time frame allowed me to appreciate the series, so I'm down for anything they send my way now.

4. Beetlejuice 2 — The first film was one of my favorite films as a kid. I'm EXTREMELY hesitant to think this will live up to it. Even if it gets terrible reviews, I'll still see it, as I want to know what story they finally thought was good enough to pull the trigger on this.

3. Joker: Folie a Deux — Oh boy...Lady Gaga is going to be insufferable, isn't she? I'll err on the side of caution, though, and say that since the previous one was so awesome, they might not botch this just because of her.

2. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire — I called it that this would be delayed in 2023. Afterlife was pretty damn good. Not perfect, and not as good as the first film, but I'd say it's on par with the second one. They've earned the right for me to be excited about this, and the trailer looked even cooler. No pun intended.

1. Deadpool 3  — Do I even need to explain this one?

WHICH MOVIES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CHECKING OUT?

TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Welcome to the seventh annual FANBOYS FILM AWARDS!

Based on the layout of last year's change to this segment, this will be acting more as a personal list of just the movies that I've seen this year, rather than something that attempts to focus specifically on the superhero film genre as originally conceived.

I invite everyone to join in on the fun by leaving their own lists and thoughts in the comments below to tell us what you watched this year!

FILMS THAT CAME OUT IN 2023 THAT I WATCHED:

65
A Haunting in Venice
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Barbie
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham
Blue Beetle
Cobweb
The Creator
Five Nights at Freddy's
The Flash
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Haunted Mansion
Hidden Strike
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
The Iron Claw
John Wick: Chapter 4
Justice League: Warworld
Knock at the Cabin
Leave the World Behind
M3gan
The Marvels
The Meg 2: The Trench
Merry Little Batman
Missing
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match
Oppenheimer
The Pale Blue Eye
The Pope's Exorcist
Renfield
Saltburn
Saw X
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Talk to Me
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
They Cloned Tyrone
Vacation Friends 2
When Evil Lurks

FILMS THAT CAME OUT BEFORE 2023 THAT I WATCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2023:

28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
A House on the Bayou
Above the Law
Amber Alert
Attachment (2022)
Beverly Hills Cop
Beverly Hills Cop 2
Beverly Hills Cop 3
Big Money Rustlas
Big Trouble in Little China
The Birdcage
Black Rain
Bloodsport
Breaking
Cape Fear
Cobra
Coherence
Con Air
Conan the Destroyer
The Condemned
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Darkman
Dead Man Walking
Double Impact
Escape from LA
Escape from New York
Fire Down Below
The Fly
The Glimmer Man
The Goonies
Hard Target
Hard to Kill
Highlander
The Humans
Hypnotic
I See You
Insidious: Chapter 3
John Wick
John Wick: Chapter 2
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
Kickboxer
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Lionheart
The Lost Boys
Lost Girls
Marcel the Shell with Shoes on
Marked for Death
Masters of the Universe
The Meg
On Deadly Ground
Out for Justice
Over the Top
The Patriot (1998)
The Princess Bride
The Producers (2005)
Radius
Raw Deal
Red Sonja
Road House
The Shadow
Soft & Quiet
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
Under Siege
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
Universal Soldier
Wall Street
Wet Hot American Summer
Whiplash
White Lie

BEST / FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

I'm not sure I would call any of the movies this year S-tier in the sense that they'd be absolute top of the line all-time favorites, except maybe one closing in on that range (but even then, you'll see where it eventually goes on my 2020s My Favorite Movies of the Decade list:

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
  

Other A-tier type films (roughly an 8/10) from this year would be:

• Godzilla Minus One
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• The Iron Claw
  
• John Wick: Chapter 4
• Knock at the Cabin
• Oppenheimer
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie
• They Cloned Tyrone
  
• If we're not limiting it to 2023, then we can throw in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, the other three John Wick films as well as Marcel the Shell with Shoes on, The Princess Bride and Wet Hot American Summer in my list of movies I most enjoyed watching this year.
• Technically, I watched Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Dream Scenario and The Holdovers after January 1, 2024, but they came out in 2023 and it's so close that I feel like I should shout them out here. Holdovers is fantastic and would be in that A+ tier. Dream and D&D would be in the B-tier.
  

B-tier (roughly a 7/10) would be:

• A Haunting in Venice
• Barbie
• Haunted Mansion
• Renfield
  
• Saltburn

C-tier (roughly a 6/10) would be:

• Leave the World Behind
• M3gan
• Missing
• Talk to Me
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
  

D-tier (roughly a 5/10 and the cutoff of what I mostly enjoyed) would be:

• 65
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• Blue Beetle
• Cobweb
• Five Nights at Freddy's
• The Flash
• The Marvels
• When Evil Lurks
  

Beyond that point, all the other movies listed above on my watch list would be E-tier or lower, and there isn't much of a reason to rank them, as they were all disappointing if not horrible.

WORST / LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR

• I watched a lot of horror movies that I never would have seen just because my wife is super into them. The vast majority of those movies were on my worst of the year, easily, like The Pope's Exorcist.
• On my own accord, though, I did watch some awful superhero films like Justice League: Warworld and Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, which I just didn't dig. In particular, Warworld was atrocious. Easily my least favorite movie of the year from the new releases. Majorly disappointing.
  
• I also watched a lot of really awful 80s action movies for the pure sake of enjoying their cheesy terrible nature. Naturally, all of them were just so, so bad. One of the worst was Steven Seagal's The Patriot. Woof. But across the board, look at how many of those I watched this year, like The Lost Boys and Universal Soldier, as well as how many newer bad action movies I watched for the same reason of laughing at it, like The Meg 2 and Hidden Strike.
  
• The first movie I had watched, during New Year's Eve, was The Shadow, which set the tone for all those bad action flicks, as that was AWFUL, but I knew it would be a mess.
• The Birdcage was painfully unfunny and slow and boring. Very disappointing.
  
• Vacation Friends 2 was also a misfire, particularly after I thought the first one was funnier than I had anticipated.
  

BEST ACTOR

WINNER = Barry Keoghan (Saltburn)

EXPLANATION = I won't spoil the movie. Just watch it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER = Margot Robbie (Barbie)

EXPLANATION = Honestly, I don't know if I'd even go so far as to say this was a top of the line performance, but for what they were trying to do, Margot Robbie pulled it off so well.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = I'm drawing a blank, to be honest. Nobody stood out.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WINNER = Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)

EXPLANATION = While I can't attest to him doing a great portrayal in terms of historical accuracy, as I'm just not aware of Strauss beyond this, Downey was a standout among a huge cast of great actors. That's saying a lot.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Holt McCallany (The Iron Claw), Mads Mikkelsen (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), Jamie Foxx (They Cloned Tyrone), Ryan Gosling (Barbie)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WINNER = Rosamund Pike (Saltburn)

EXPLANATION = Once she's introduced, she steals every scene.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Amie Donald (M3GAN), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers), Michelle Pfeiffer (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Iman Vellani (The Marvels)

BEST STORY

This is an alternative to Best Adapted/Original Screenplay where the execution of the overall product might not be the equivalent of Best Picture, but the idea was there.

WINNER = Saltburn

EXPLANATION = I almost gave this to Knock at the Cabin, but the other honorable mentions are pretty by the numbers tales. Saltburn is the most out there of the bunch, and overall, the one that I'd have the most fun explaining to someone if they asked for a breakdown. Also, it took me by surprise more than any of the other films.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = The Flash, Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Holdovers, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Knock at the Cabin, Renfield, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

MOST FAITHFUL ADAPTATION

Which movie felt like it was the most honorable to the source material it was trying to represent?

WINNER = Godzilla Minus One

EXPLANATION = Basically, what do you get when you remake the original film, but update it with some more modern approaches and tweak the story to make it way better. Everything about it is an adaptation made with love, though, rather than the vibe of "new and different and better than that crap from the past" like the approach other franchises have taken. They have a similar look to Godzilla, they reincorporated the classic theme song, and even did similar story beats. Awesome job.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Saw X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Super Mario Bros. Movie

BEST VISUALS

This covers special effects, cinematography, production design and even editing.

WINNER = Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

EXPLANATION = At times, it can be a bit of a mess. Maybe too much. But generally speaking, more artistry and effort was put into this film's little details than most other movies give to their big sequences.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Godzilla Minus One

BEST ACTION SET PIECES

This honors the stunt work as well as the choreography and idea of an action sequence.

WINNER = Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

EXPLANATION = Again, like the visuals, it can be a bit too much at times, but you're strapped in for a wild ride from start to finish and the depth of the action outclasses everything else going on in the other films.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Godzilla Minus One, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Renfield

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN

This combines makeup, costumes and the CGI build of characters.

WINNER = Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

EXPLANATION = By sheer volume alone, right? Not that the other movies in the honorable mentions don't have a ton of characters, too, but still.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Barbie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Renfield, The Super Mario Bros. Movie

BEST MUSIC

This category examines both the score and the soundtrack.

WINNER = Oppenheimer

EXPLANATION = So good. I don't know if anything on this soundtrack beats the "Resolution" track from Godzilla Minus One, but as a collective goes, the overall score from Oppenheimer is the best.

HONORABLE MENTIONS = Godzilla Minus One, The Super Mario Bros. Movie

TELL US YOUR LIST IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

What if the characters of Marvel and DC fought in a WWE Survivor Series style pay-per-view?

Welcome to a special FANTASY FIGHTS podcast here on Fanboys Anonymous along with a Fantasy Booking edition of the Smark Out Moment Smack Talk podcast!

This crossover two-part episode takes the concept of the annual Survivor Series event and replaces the WWE Superstars with the superheroes of DC Comics and Marvel instead of the brand warfare "Raw vs. SmackDown" setup.

The red brand of Marvel and the blue brand of DC are put together on Battleworld with general managers Red Brother and Blue Brother in a two-night pay-per-view hosted by Access. This contest of champions will settle brand supremacy once and for all in Secret Wars!

This event is so big that it had to be broken up over two nights, so if you want to find out what matches were booked, how the card plays out and who comes out on top, be sure to check out these two podcasts below and subscribe on the different platforms that you can find these episodes!

Bonus: If you are on the Darkcast tier on Smark Out Moment's Patreon (or YouTube membership) or the Bonus Features tier on the Fanboys Anonymous Patreon (or YouTube membership), you can check out a special Episode #3 of this, with a different card lineup based on the WWE Survivor Series: WarGames concept instead of the traditional elimination matches!

Smark Out Moment: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and more.
Fanboys Anonymous: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and more

PART 1 - SMARK OUT MOMENT

PART 2 - FANBOYS ANONYMOUS

PART 3 - FANBOYS ANONYMOUS (BONUS FEATURES SUBSCRIBERS)

LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

How would you rank every Pokémon that has ever been created on a tier list scale?

This post features not only every Pokémon from every generation and all the games, but every regional variant, all the different forms, and special Pokémon from Kanto's original 151 through the latest games of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.

Any time a new Pokémon is announced to the public, it will be added to this list. At any random time, this could be updated, as well, to reflect changes in opinions over time—such as growing a greater appreciation for something after using it in a game's playthrough or a meme exploding in popularity that boosts its value.

This ranking is entirely based on personal opinions of pure favoritism. This is not a battle simulator or anything of the sort. While battling does factor into the ranking, it is a combination of strength, design, personality and more.

Without further ado, let's celebrate Pokemon Day 2023 with my personal rankings for all of the Pokémon to have ever existed so far!

What are your Pokémon rankings?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

Welcome to the fourth block of my gargantuan series of lists breaking down My Favorite Movies of Every Year and my top movies of every decade. This edition focuses on the 2010s—movies that were released between the years 2010 and 2019.

To check out the other entries in this series, click on the following links as they are broken down by every decade:

FAVORITE MOVIES LISTS - BY DECADE
1960s, 1970s, 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s — MASTER LIST PAGE

For a more elaborate explanation of this project as a whole, consult the master list page above.

But in general, the three major notes to keep in mind are:

1) This is a list of my favorite movies, rather than the films I think are the best. There is a distinction. Just because I like them the most doesn't mean I think they are of the highest quality, necessarily.

2) I try to keep a top 10 list for each year, but some don't have a proper 10, while others have more. Everything is still ranked, though.

3) There is a key to the level of fandom. Bold means I absolutely love the movie. Italics without being bold means I like them a lot. Gray movies are a bit on the fence for the list. And gray movies that are striked out are mostly filler and could easily be replaced.

Check out my Letterboxd for some star ratings for any of these movies and more, since I've obviously seen a lot of films that I don't like that won't be appearing on these lists whatsoever.

Also, stay tuned for any possible updates! Whenever I see a new movie that I like, I'll potentially be adding it to the ranking. So while something is on the list at this particular moment, it may not always be there!