Another year is drawing to a close and it’s time to reflect on what kind of year it has been. In the cinema, it has been a good year for sci-fi films, with Jurassic World breaking the record for fastest film to gross a billion dollars in June and then Star Wars shattering that record in December. The Sci-fi London film festival also introduced me to several interesting new indie sci-fi films and short films; you can read my summary of the latter here.

As with 2013 and 2014, 2015 was dominated by superhero films. Marvel released its usual two blockbusters in the spring and summer. First up was their crossover film Avengers: The Age of Ultron, which combined many great characters, had a charismatic villain and amazing special effects, but failed to come together as a complete narrative. The character development was bitty, spread too thin between too many characters, and at some points just plain dull. We did not need a whole sequence dedicated to Hawkeye’s domestic situation.

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In order to write my summary of the sci-fi films of 2014, first I looked back at my review of films of 2013. A year ago, I said that 2013 was a good year for film but not a particularly original one, and the same can also be said about this year.

Much like last year, the big winner in 2014 was Marvel. Their Avengers shared-Universe franchise continues to deliver entertaining films and strong results at the box office. They started the year with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a huge improvement on the dismal Captain America: The First Avenger. The present day setting, inclusion of other Avengers stars like Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, a scattering of spectacular fight scenes and a genuinely menacing villain made this a hugely entertaining film.

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As the curtain goes down on 2013, it is time to overcome the hangovers and food comas of Christmas and look back at the year that was. This is the end of my first year running Nimbus Space and I wanted to take this opportunity to summarise the eventful year of films.

First off, it has been a good year for comic book and graphic novel adaptations. The superhero genre continues to dominate cinemas and delivered some of this year’s highest grossing films. Marvel had two releases this year, Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World.

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