Fast & Furious 6

After the gloriously self-aware, sublimely idiotic, and extraordinarily well-executed Fast Five, director Justin Lin had his work cut out for him when it came to crafting a new sequel in the Fast and Furious franchise. Now he's back with Fast & Furious 6, the series' largest and most ridiculous entry so far, but does bigger always necessarily mean better? Read on to find out.

Fast & Furious 6
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans

Star Trek Into Darkness

In the summer of 2009, J.J. Abrams boldly did what no director had done before: he made Star Trek cool to mainstream audiences. Four years later, he's back with Star Trek Into Darkness, a sequel which improves on his original while advancing the relationships of the Starship Enterprise crew. With killer action, a terrific villain, amazing setpieces, and stunningly good visual effects, Into Darkness provides a spectacle only Abrams could deliver; luckily for us, all of that translates into a pretty damn good summer blockbuster.

Star Trek Into Darkness
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana

Iron Man 3

When Jon Favreau kicked off Marvel's amazing string of interconnected superhero films with the first Iron Man back in 2008, I doubt if he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. The second film (which Favreau also directed) was saddled with the unenviable task of fitting in tons of references to S.H.I.E.L.D., resulting in a disaster that felt more like a calculated piece of franchise set-up than a real movie. But now Favreau has wisely handed off directing duties to Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black, and he has reinvigorated the Iron Man series with its best entry yet. Iron Man 3 is smart, clever, fun, full of surprises, overflowing with action, and loaded with terrific moments. It's the perfect way to kick off Phase Two of Marvel's Cinematic Universe.

Iron Man 3
Co-writer/Director: Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall

Pain & Gain

It's been eight years since Michael Bay directed anything other than a Transformers movie, and if you've read interviews with him over the past couple of years, it's obvious the director has been itching to move out of Optimus Prime's shadow. But in a classic case of "one for them, one for me," Paramount gave Bay a modest $25 million budget to direct Pain & Gain if he agreed to come back and direct the fourth entry into the giant robot franchise. For Bay, it was a good deal not just because of the stacks of money he'll assuredly make by returning to his robot saga, but because this film lets him flex a different set of creative muscles. This is a small scale passion project that tells the true story of kidnapping, extortion, sex, and murder in Miami during the mid-1990s; in other words, it's a story Michael Bay was born to tell.

Pain & Gain
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie