The 17 most exciting movies coming this summer - ranked

We're just starting to get the first specks of summer – a flash of sun here, a pair of pasty legs there – so it must be time to get out your calendar and plan for some serious hours sitting in a dark cinema.

Summer is blockbuster season in movieland and there are some massive hitters coming your way this year. Grab your diary and family-sized bag of popcorn: here are the 17 most exciting movies heading to cinemas soon - ranked in order of excitingness.

Another remake of a 1990 classic, this looks like more of a belated sequel with Kiefer Sutherland returning as Nelson, his character from the original. More young med students – Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev – experiment with near-death experiences until it starts to mess with their real lives. The original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev heads it up.

This one has been lingering in development hell for so long we barely believe it's actually coming out – we'll believe it when we see it. There's still no trailer though we've had a few images at least of Idris Elba as Gunslinger Roland Deschain, pursing the Man In Black (Matthew McConaughey) across a post-apocalyptic landscape. The director is Nikolaj Arcel who made A Royal Affair. Which is great but we can't possibly see what the two projects have in common.

Sequel to the rude, funny, comic book spy-spoof starring Taron Egerton as Eggsy, a young bloke initiated into an elite espionage organisation. This instalment sees their HQ infiltrated and the Kingsmen uniting with an allied US agency. Also Colin Firth's back, though we have no idea how.