The best movie trailers

[Fredde]

This isn't a thread about upcoming movies, but for discussing your favorite movie trailers, new or old, no matter if the actual movie turned out to be good or not. I'll start with some personal favorites:

 

[Wheels]

 

[Beta Metroid]

 

[Vaeran]

I continue to wish we got cold, menacing Trailer Ultron in the movie itself instead of the easily-distracted quipping weirdo we ultimately got.

 

[Patrick]

It was just wild to see the novelty of this many characters together.

I was so excited for this!

I don't think this is the right trailer, but I remember seeing the shot at the end with everyone walking in the mountains and just being instantly sold.

I think I initially saw a shorter version of this, but man did it ever look impressive at the time.

 

[Fredde]

Which of course led to the infamous Alien 3 teaser:

 

[Little Sampson]

Whatever your thoughts on the movie (it rules), the first Where the Wild Things Are trailer is among the most stirring I've ever seen.

The best trailer of all time, though, is for A Serious Man and it's not even really close for me.

Honorable Mentions:

The Mission: Impossible - Fallout trailer is the only one allowed to sync action beats to the music.
The first Us trailer deserves a spot here just for the I Got 5 On It remix alone, but it's also the platonic ideal of a modern horror trailer.
Also if we're gonna fill this thread with superhero movies, I would be remiss if I didn't say that Man of Steel has the best trailer of the bunch.

 

[Fredde]

Oh yeah, Mission: Impossible has some good trailers.

Also, The Force Awakens had a great trailer. I especially liked when I found some fanart from someone who had been misled to think that Finn was going to be a badass with a lightsaber because of the trailer.

 

[estragon]

The full length Evangelion: Q trailer that by being all new footage revealed this project was definitely 100% no longer a remake with some new scenes but the first all new Eva content in over a decade was probably the most excited I've been for a movie trailer.

(The original is weirdly no longer on youtube, but I believe this ad for the Italian region physical media release with a dumb thumbnail is just a repurposed version of the exact trailer I watched a billion times.)

 

[Fredde]

"I'm working on something big."

 

[Isrieri]

 

[conchobhar]

Whatever your thoughts on the movie (it rules), the first Where the Wild Things Are trailer is among the most stirring I've ever seen.

The best trailer of all time, though, is for A Serious Man and it's not even really close for me.

Damn, beat me to it! These two came to mind as soon as I saw the thread title.

The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo is another that came to mind. The way it shows so much without actually saying anything makes it very striking and immediately sets a tone.

… oh, and this too:

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Dang, someone beat me to "A Serious Man" (which is one of the best Coens movies). But seriously, no one beat me to Psycho?

 

[Isrieri]

A Serious Man is a damn good movie. The trailer's pretty good, too.

But seriously, no one beat me to Psycho?

Oh, thanks for reminding me! I almost forgot:

 

[Fredde]

I always love a good cover of Nature Boy:

And speaking of horror, the trailer for the 2014 Godzilla actually made it look like an apocalyptic horror movie:

 

[Phantoon]

I think I initially saw a shorter version of this, but man did it ever look impressive at the time.

I remember the hype when this came out. I was obsessively watching it and going on TheForce.net. I don't think any other trailer has ever got me as excited as that.

 

[Fredde]

Prometheus had some great viral videos:

 

[Tegan]

The OG Prometheus teaser trailer was both incredible and served as a great callback to the original Alien trailer with that spooky wailing siren noise.

I'm noticing a distinct pattern of "great trailers generally belong to either great movies or terrible ones"

...or movies that seem great at first and get worse and worse in hindsight!

 

[Exposition Owl]

I haven't actually seen the movie this trailer is nominally advertising, but that's OK, because it basically works as a short film in its own right. I don't know whether the humor is one of those "you had to be there" things, though.

 

[Purple]

 

[Fredde]

I think my favorite part was that when the giant robot hits the buildings, they start bleeding.

If you don't know the premise of Spies in Disguise, the twist in the trailer is hard to anticipate:

 

[Johnny Unusual]

 

[Büge]

Remember that trend of using the theme from Stargate for fantasy and sci-fi movie trailers?

For reference:

And here are some examples:

 

[Super Megaman X]

This one's great because it's done something I've never seen a trailer do: contain new footage specifically for the trailer. I don't mean that it has clips from the movie that wound up not being used, I mean it's 100% original new content shot specifically for this trailer. It's fantastic. (Also, I don't know how to post youtube videos on the new board. But then again, I didn't know how to on the old board either, so nothing's changed. Also Also, first post, yay!)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The sounds a bit muted but here's a crazy video with no actual footage that works on style and themes.

 

[Fredde]

Another teaser/trailer with completely original footage:

 

[Johnny Unusual]

People complain that trailers give away too much. This one gives away the entire movie. Warning, mildly NSFW due to a couple seconds of nipples.

Its a little silly but its definitely an original trailer.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Something effective about simplicity.

 

[Mightyblue]

The Stargate theme is one of those great, and eternally classic, themes yeah.

 

[4-So]

Both of the Force Awakens teasers were ultimately better than the eventual trailer and made me hyped for a movie in a way I hadn't been in a very long time.

Some others: