Marvel sequels, 'Jurassic World' & 'Nope' lead Fandango's most-anticipated summer 2022 movies

For the first time in three years, we're looking ahead at a proper summer movie season. As much of the world continues to adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic through vaccines and other medicines, it's much easier than it was in 2020 or 2021 to feel good about going out to a theater, and that means for the first time since 2019 we've got a full lineup of major film releases headed our way throughout the hottest months of the year.

With that in mind, movie ticket giant Fandango just dropped the results of its 2022 Moviegoing Trends and Insights Study, a survey of more than 6,000 Fandango customers which gathers data on which films people want to see, how good they feel about theaters, and how often they plan to head out to the movies this year. 

Overall, Fandango users seem ready to get back out there, with 83 percent of respondents noting they plan on seeing at least three movies in theaters this summer. But which movies will theatergoers be heading to the most? That brings us to Fandango's Top 10 Most-Anticipated films of the summer, according to the respondents in the study. 

Taking the top spot is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the first MCU film since the record-breaking Spider-Man: No Way Home and the film sitting right at the doorway to summer with a May 6 release date. Right under Strange, in the #2 spot, is its MCU summer companion Thor: Love and Thunder, which drops just after the Fourth of July weekend and promises Jane Foster's rise to Thunder God status. 

Right behind those two big MCU installments is another major franchise contender, Universal's Jurassic World Dominion, which has caught the eye of audiences with the return of original Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Right below that is a long-awaited sequel to an action classic, Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick. 

Following the top four in the fifth and sixth slots are still more franchise entries, Despicable Me prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru and Pixar's Toy Story spinoff Lightyear, but original films are still represented on the list. Baz Luhrmann's long-awaited biopic Elvis came in at number seven, Jordan Peele's much-anticipated new horror film Nope landed at number eight, and the Brad Pitt-starring action film Bullet Train dropped in at number nine. Rounding out the list in the tenth spot is another sequel: Downton Abbey: A New Era, because people still love getting fancy with the Crawley family. 

For more data, including the factors most likely to drive Fandango users to the movies, check out the full survey over at Fandango's website. Overall, it looks like an encouraging bunch of numbers of a big summer at the movies.