Pundit Poll: Experts Name This Summer's Most Anticipated Films

With summer movie season nigh, Movieline turned to the critics to see which blockbusters and potential sleepers are at the top of the experts' most anticipated lists. From star-powered vehicles to long-awaited sequels, space superheroes to Spielbergian sci-fi, our pundits' picks ran the gamut, but one film emerged the clear front-runner. Is it the same event movie you can't wait to see?

"I'll punt on both dumb blockbusters and even Larry Crowne, the latter of which is sincerely intriguing to me to see Tom Hanks back behind the camera -- both because I think he's got some talent there, and in half measure for the way in which he has embraced Twitter/social media during pre-production and filming. I'll instead say I'm looking forward to Friends with Benefits. Although we've already seen this concept on display earlier this year with No Strings Attached, director Will Gluck has assembled a great, game cast, and with both Fired Up! and the delightful Easy A, he's proven himself both a superb writer and craftsman of jokes but also a master of tonal authenticity and consistency, problems with which sink so many studio comedies these days." -- Brent Simon, Film Critic, Screen International

"The number one film on my summer radar is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two. I'm a huge fan of both the books and the movies, and I can't wait to see how they pull off finally wrapping the story. Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite of the adaptations thus far, but I have high hopes that Parts One and Two of Deathly Hallows, taken together, will feel satisfyingly complete. Bring on the popcorn." -- Kim Voynar, Features Editor, Movie City News

"I've got my doubts about The Help -- the novel is sprawling and could get messy on the screen, and director Tate Taylor is so new it's impossible to know what to expect one way or another. But the dynamite cast they've assembled and truly meaningful subject matter means that, no matter what, when the movie comes out in August it'll be a welcome break from the testosterone-fueled stuff that dominates summer. Hey, Emma Stone hasn't let me down yet!" -- Katey Rich, Managing Editor, Cinema Blend

"I'm not the least bit ashamed to admit that the summer movie I'm most eagerly awaiting is an unabashed blockbuster: Cowboys & Aliens. Indeed, I was already looking forward to it before I interviewed several folks connected with the film for a cover story I'm writing for (no kidding) Cowboys & Indians Magazine. But something co-scriptwriter Alex Kurtzman said really boosted the must-see quotient for me: 'What we've done, essentially, is set up this very serious, very stark, very dangerous world with all the conventions that apply to a traditional Western. And into the middle of that world, we drop aliens -- and then have people react the way people in that world would have reacted.' Cowabunga." -- Joe Leydon, Critic/Correspondent, Variety

"If anything other than Green Lantern were coming out I'd double-down all my film school cred on Tree of Life. But no fantasia of Proustian imagery set to classical music can compare with the Guardians of the Universe and their 3600 sectors of space cops. Give me Ryan Reynolds in his eerily skin-like green suit, chicken-fish aliens and the power of Will to construct translucent machine guns. My intention this summer is to eat a bag of popcorn the size of a Greek ocean liner and freak out to intergalactic superhero antics." -- Jordan Hoffman, Movies Editor, UGO.com

"I want Bridesmaids to be great. (And rumor has it, it is.) But even more than that, I want Bridesmaids to make $100 million dollars so Hollywood will green-light a dozen other female-driven comedies where ladies talk about more than Manolos and men. Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, Tina Fey, Lucy Punch, Isla Fisher, Jennifer Coolidge, Kristen Schaal, Rashida Jones, Lizzy Caplan, Gillian Jacobs and Allison Brie are kick-ass and ready to conquer." -- Amy Nicholson, Editor-in-Chief, Box Office Magazine

"Need to see really badly because of guaranteed monkeys: Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Zookeeper."

"Need to see really badly because of probable monkeys: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Film Socialisme." -- Dave White, Film Critic, Movies.com/Host, Linoleum Knife podcast

Next: The number one most anticipated summer movie in Movieline's Pundit Poll...

"I am most looking forward to J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg's Super 8. It looks like the real deal. It's an original." -- Anne Thompson, Thompson on Hollywood at indieWIRE

"While I could name about 10 movies I'm very excited for this summer, the one above all else that I'm most excited for is J.J. Abrams' Super 8. Not only does it play exactly to the genres and stories that I personally love (sci-fi, coming-of-age period-set small town drama with big action, etc.) but it looks like it might be better than any other movie this summer. It looks to be so much more than just a summer action blockbuster. Super 8 reminds me of the kind of classic, sci-fi/adventure movies from the 70s/80s/90s that we don't see anymore and I have a feeling Abrams tried to go back and capture that feeling all over again and contemporize it and put his twist on it."

"From the casting of the kids to the story and setting to the bits of action we've seen so far, I just feel like Super 8 could truly be a modern sci-fi classic that pays homage to all those films that I grew up with. It just so happens to be getting released in June, right smack in the middle of the summer, but maybe that's good, because if this turns out to be amazing, it deserves to be a box office hit, too. Oh and I'm also crazy excited to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. It's going to be a hell of an unforgettable finale." -- Alex Billington, FirstShowing.net

"Of all this summer's big films, the one I'm most excited about is probably J.J. Abrams' Super 8. Intellectually, I like the idea of at least one summer film without a roman numeral, a previous version or 50 years of comic-book history trailing in its wake, and emotionally Abrams' Spielbergian pastiche of big events and big emotions looks perfectly aimed at a very specific time in my own life -- evoking that time when I was not merely young, but, also, when I was first starting to love film. Of all this summer's films, Super 8 is the one I both most want to see and least want to know about before I go (I walked out of the theater when Paramount tried to show 23 minutes of it at Cinema Con) -- because, frankly, in our clip-and-preview, spoiler-and-scoop-heavy age, just once I'd like to go to the movies feeling the same kind of expectant, hopeful wonder I did when I was a kid." -- James Rocchi, Critic and Journalist, MSN Movies/Toronto Star

"I'm not one of those critics who goes on lockdown regarding the marketing for anticipated films -- I don't run from trailers, or hide my eyes from official photographs, I don't mind being hideously spoiled for an upcoming film. But when it comes to Super 8, I don't want to know a thing, I want to go in fresh, if only because I am already convinced that I am going to love this film. It's the exact type of "blockbuster" the local multiplex needs -- something that is new but grounded in the classics, something that doesn't involve suspending your disbelief at the possibility of superheroes, something that everyone can enjoy. At least, from the limited marketing I've allowed myself to take in, that's what it looks like to me, and that's what I am hoping it is."

"And, if I am allowed to throw in a guilty pleasure pick, I stand by my desire to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon. My strong, strong desire." -- Kate Erbland, Managing Editor, GordonandtheWhale

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So there you have it! J.J. Abrams' Super 8, a film in part about filmmaking itself (and aliens and kids and the kind of small town retro wonder we rarely get at the movies anymore) tops our pundits' must-see lists. What's on yours as the summer season gets underway?

Check out all of Movieline's Summer Preview coverage here.