What was the best summer ever for big-budget film?

In a world where big cinema releases are all but extinct, we go back in time to find the greatest movie summer of them all

Planet-killing asteroids! Alien invasions! Sneaky dinosaurs! These were the existential threats that 45 years of summer blockbusters had pre-programmed us to expect. Instead, something rather more insidious wiped 2020's May-to-August movie slate clean, depriving audiences of their usual buffet of unmissable communal spectacles and/or over-marketed idiotainment. Starved of popcorn entertainment, it seems natural to look back hungrily. So what were the most explosive movie summers of the past?