We ought to see fewer movies during the summer—when the weather is nice and the outdoors are all too inviting—but it rarely works out that way, all thanks to the allure of the summer blockbuster. The annual Hollywood trend lets studios turn tent-pole releases into major events, featuring vast marketing campaigns and midnight campouts for 11:59 screenings. But what makes something a summer blockbuster?

Many blockbusters rely on similar genres or tropes, but little more than big budgets; big box office receipts and the ability to dominate the cultural conversation for at least a few weeks often unite them. A great blockbuster, however, is something dynamic and enduring beyond its initial release, an offering from Hollywood that’s original even when it’s a sequel and changes the way we watch the movie from there on out. Here are 8 great summer blockbusters that managed just that.

Jaws

Jaws is more than a cheesy-looking shark—it’s a film that crystallized the early genius of Steven Spielberg while creating the template for later blockbusters to follow. Too sunny to be an outright horror film, the film wisely teases its finned antagonist for most of the runtime (due to Spielberg’s dissatisfaction with the animatronic shark), leaving viewers to speculate about the danger lurking just beneath the sun and fun of a holiday weekend on the fictional Amity Island.

The thrills create intrigue, but the three main characters (Brody, Hooper and Quint) give the film its heart, trading war stories and quips that oddly foreshadow the lovable dynamics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The seasonal setting and popularity of its source material helped turn Jaws into a summertime event—a template that signaled the decline of the independent-minded New Hollywood in favor of the blockbuster era that continues today.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The release of the first Star Wars was a phenomenon no one could have anticipated, including the filmmakers themselves, who believed their space opera homage to Flash Gordon serials would fade quickly into obscurity, rather than inspiring a franchise and merchandising empire that thrives to this day. A New Hope was a miraculous fluke, but its first sequel The Empire Strikes Back was a massive release greeted with fanaticism and an enormous marketing push.

And somehow the movie was good, but not just good—better than the original. One of the greatest triumphs of franchise filmmaking and Hollywood’s sequel system, The Empire Strikes Back expanded the scope of its story while developing the characters and added new layers of ideological darkness to its universe while still delivering a relentlessly paced, undeniably fun story. Its cliffhanger ending spurred the theorizing fanboy community forward; its third-act reveal became the yardstick by which we measure all great film twists and characters like Yoda taught future filmmakers that philosophical concepts and big-budget filmmaking need not be mutually exclusive.

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

Spielberg is film’s greatest populist; a master of blockbuster filmmaking with a unique ability to ground the fantastical in the mundane, using everyday detail to involve audiences in extraordinary situations. E.T. may be named for an alien—one whose animatronic perfectly toes the line between adorable and unsettling—but it’s about a boy who struggles with his parents’ divorce; fakes sick to get out of school and obsesses over Star Wars action figures.

More than most, E.T. feels like one of the ultimate blockbusters as well as the greatest family film ever produced—the kind that isn’t often made anymore, truly offering something for everyone in a nakedly sentimental but never manipulative story about a boy discovering himself; learning to cope with loss and putting the needs of his loved ones before his own. There’s something sad and plain and true at the heart of E.T. that ensures the magical moments—like the iconic flying bike sequence—seem to soar that much higher.

Back to the Future

The script for Back to the Future ought to be required reading at every film school. The film is a masterclass in plant-and-payoff, revisiting every townsperson and hallmark of Reagan-era culture we witness in 1985 after Marty travels 30 years into the past. Every contrast is a joke that’s been meticulously earned, and many of the differences between 1955 Hill Valley and 1985 Hill Valley play like a fascinating document of the way American culture changed in the intervening 30 years.

But beyond the ridiculously tight script and colorful visual style Zemeckis never again equaled, Back to the Future is yet another example of the dynamic ‘80s blockbuster that transcends genre by miraculously, effortlessly weaving them together into a perfect conglomeration of science fiction antics, period piece detail, teen melodrama and goofy character-based comedy.

Die Hard

Die Hard invented an action film formula so irresistible it inspired a wave of poor imitators like Speed (Die Hard on a bus) and Under Siege (Die Hard on a boat). There are few better indicators of cultural importance than ripoffs, so you know Die Hard was an important film, and not just for the catchphrases it invented.

Bruce Willis defined his career early on with the everyman cop John McClane placed in an extraordinary situation: trapped and alone in a building controlled by terrorists led by Hans Gruber, Alan Rickman’s perfect version of elegant evil complete with fussy English accent. The confined one vs. many concept is immediately intriguing, but Die Hard goes beyond basic action with a hard-R script that mines every situation for laughs as well as action, devoting just the right amount of screen time to John McClane’s emotional arc as well.

Jurassic Park

Can Spielberg go even just one decade without reinventing popular film? Trading in alien animatronics for partially CGI dinosaurs, Jurassic Park sparked a national obsession with prehistoric reptiles (especially for those fearsome raptors most had never heard of before the film’s release), while simultaneously changing the course of special effect in film—for worse, in many cases (it inspired George Lucas’s CGI-soaked prequel trilogy, for example).

But as with Jaws, Spielberg knows how to withhold when he should, using animatronics and iconic visual tricks like the rippling glass of water to make the dinosaurs into tangible threats instead of animated blurs. He even creates separate personalities for his reptilian creatures while focusing first and foremost on his human characters and their reaction to the terrifying magnificence around them. It’s a small but integral detail that we see our protagonists marveling in awe before we see the dinosaurs themselves.

The Dark Knight

What blockbusters can define the 21st century better than superhero films? Our national obsession with comic book characters once considered niche interests continues, but it may never reach the same heights it in the summer of 2008, when Christopher Nolan released his gritty crime epic centered around the caped crusader.

DC has since tried to emulate Nolan’s signature dark aesthetic, but The Dark Knight was always about more than superficial darkness—it’s a political allegory that reflects Bush-era power grabs and the unknowable threat of international terrorism through new iterations of the perfectly matched comic rivals Joker and Batman. Heath Ledger’s unhinged performance and narrative importance turns him into the star of this Batman movie, and though The Dark Knight undoubtedly loses its way more than a few times in its overstuffed final act, few films better represent the power of populist Hollywood culture and big allegorical ideas blended together.

The Avengers

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the inverse of The Dark Knight in more ways than just its sunny color palette. For starters, The Avengers is about next to nothing, save for the possibilities of franchise filmmaking in the modern era. The product of an absurdly ambitious studio plan to bring together disparate B-list comic book characters, the film draws on blockbuster traditions for its multitasking character work, miraculously finding time to service every one of its larger-than-life characters with plenty of memorable quips.

The Avengers is beset with flaws indicative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, lacking striking visuals and a truly strong villainous presence (Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is compelling enough, but the faceless army of CGI aliens he conjures for the climax is not), but it’s hard to argue with its merits as a piece of pure popcorn-ready entertainment or its massive influence on future blockbusters.