Top Gun: Maverick and House of the Dragon Win Big at Golden Tomato Awards

Rotten Tomatoes has announced the winners of its Golden Tomato Awards. The award recognizes some of the biggest Hollywood hits, to the most provocative indies and everything in between acknowledging the features to be both a critical and mainstream darling. The year gone by has been a critical one with the theaters business finally picking up and recovering from the losses incurred by the pandemic. Also, the streaming services saw some shows bowing out as well as started some new stories which will entertain us in the years to come. Features like Top Gun: Maverick, House of the Dragon, Happening, and Better Call Saul won in several categories making them some of the most well-reviewed by fans and critics alike.

Reviving the theaters in the summer of 2022 was Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick which brought back the character to the big screen after three decades with high-octane action and Maverick’s heart at the core. The movie grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office becoming the second film to do so during the pandemic era and breaking several records. The movie has been awarded a Golden Tomato in Action Adventure, Wide release, and Best Film (overall).

Standing next to Maverick in the film category is the French drama thriller Happening. Starring Anamaria Vartolomei in the titular role the feature is directed by Audrey Diwan from a screenplay she co-wrote with Marcia Romano, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Annie Ernaux. The movie has been recognized in the Best Drama, Foreign Film, and Limited Release categories.

Matt Smith as Daemon and Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra in House of the Dragon Episode 7 — Image via HBO

Matt Reeves’ The Batman which introduced Robert Pattinson as the vengeance alongside a slew of characters from the DC lore stands tall as the Best Comic Book movie of the year. Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animation Pinocchio, which reimagines the classic character as the story about fathers and sons gets the Best Animated Feature and Best Streaming Movie. A24’s dark horse the multiverse spanning Everything Everywhere All at Once got recognized as the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy feature.

In TV, House of Dragon wins big with multiple awards in Best New Series, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and TV Overall categories. The tale of the Targaryen dynasty worked wonders with HBO’s numbers with viewership increasing every week. Showrun by Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal, the series has great performances by Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, and Paddy Considine. Standing next to the fantasy drama is Bob Odenkirk’s Better Call Saul which bagged awards in Best Drama Series and Best Returning Series categories.

With a slew of superheroes expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney+, Iman Vellani-led Ms. Marvel came on top as Best Superhero Series. The series does a great job of representation by bringing the tale of a Pakistani-American teenage superhero to life. Additionally, it tells the tale of India Pakistan partition from a sensitive and familial lens that’s never been seen before in any other form of media.

You can check out the winners of this year’s Golden Tomato Awards below:

Film Winners