What are some of the greatest movie trailers you’ve ever seen? Trailers that just made your blood run cold when you first saw them. Some of my picks, in no particular order:
Pineapple Express
Watchmen
300
Where the Wild Things Are
And, of course, the trailer for the 1969 film True Grit.
Links, people, links!
The Comedian
Spider-man teaser - When this trailer was new, I remember seeing it at a theater and it just looked like some generic action movie until… the reveal! Everyone in the theater started cheering. Awesome.
It had a short shelf-life, though, as September 11 was not long after that.
Certainly the most excited I have ever been for a trailer was the first trailer for The Phantom Menace. My lord I was excited for that movie, and the trailer is really well put together.
As for pure entertainment value of the trailer, I have to agree with Comedian.
I think I would stand behind just about all of the ones on this list.
Especially Alien, The Social Network, Superman Returns, Spider-Man and The Minus Man (A movie I had never heard of until I saw it on this list.
When it first appeared, I couldn’t watch the trailer for Shadow of a Vampire often enough. Still gives me a great laugh.
The one I am addicted to now is this fall’s coming movie Anonymous. Brilliant tag-lines, great use of a Radiohead tune in a period flick, and a trailer that gives me the shivers every time I see it.
I have a few:
Not a widely seen movie, but a very creative trailer. Check it out.
Minus Man
And:
Watchmen
Phantom Menace- I can not believe how bad this movie is compared to its trailer.
Ju-on. Maybe the creepiest movie I’ve ever seen. Trailer pushes the right buttons.
I liked the other Watchmen trailer better.
I can’t find a link to it but I recall a really short Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring teaser that was basically little more than some of the rousing music and and Frodo and crew cresting a hilltop. I think the movie was at least a year or so off but I could tell from that little snippet that it was going to be special.
The trailer for 300 rocked.
I love this trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great use of the E.L.O. song Mr. Blue Sky toward the end.
The first Kill Billtrailer, if only for introducing the world to that piece of music.
I remember that, too. I am sure it was only that shot included, but the only one I can find is this one which has a bunch of other clips in it first.
I think the trailer for the Kevin Costner “Robin Hood Prince of Thieves” had a shot of an arrow flying through the air that wowed audiences so much that they put it in the movie when initially they weren’t planning to.
I don’t know if it was in the trailer but the “That’s not a knife. Here, This is a knife” scene for “Crocodile Dundee” used in TV commercials was so good that I remember a number of people saying they would see the movie just because of that.
The trailer for “Cloverfield” was sensational, much better than the movie ended up being.
In a similar vein, the trailer for the Kaufman-Jonze collaboration of Adaptation great, offering a sense of the film without just offering a cut down version of the story.
Stranger
I remember seeing the trailer for Sorcerer in the theater in 1974 and thinking, “Dayum! I’ve GOT to see that!”
And I did - the week it opened. And it was (and remains) awesome!