6) Deadpool
What surprised many viewers when Deadpool came out this February is that, underneath the anarchic humour and the non-linear storytelling, it was basically a traditional origins story movie. Familiar its set-up might have been, then, but Deadpool is a great example of why there is nothing wrong with falling back on tried and tested formula.
After all, it’s very rare for something to be genuinely original, so it’s really more important to focus on the telling of it. And with everything from the tragic backstory to the hero rescuing their love interest from the villain in the third act, there wasn’t much in Deadpool’s story that we hadn’t seen before. The trick was to look at it from a new angle, with a very different main character and a lot of side-winks at the audience.
Let’s hope that Deadpool 2 can similarly play off the conventions of superhero movie sequels and again offer up something familiar yet fresh.