One of the coolest things about Comic Con, which took place in San Diego on July 18-21, is the chance for fans to see exclusive sneak peeks of some of the biggest upcoming movies and TV shows. And possibly the most impressive piece of footage to come out of SDCC this year was the new trailer for Alfonso Cuarón's lost-in-space flick 'Gravity.' The trailer contains just one 90-second scene from the movie, but that scene plays out in one long, uninterrupted take. The impressive camerawork, the dramatic score, and the soundless explosions all combine in a perfect storm of awe-inspiring tension. Take a look:
In the past couple of decades, movie trailers have become an art form unto themselves, almost completely separate from the films they advertise. Some brilliant movies have terrible trailers; a surprising amount of terrible movies have stunning trailers. Advertisers typically have anywhere from 60 to 150 seconds to promote their film, so the people who put the trailers together have to straddle a difficult balance between revealing enough to get people interested, and not revealing too much. Horror movies in particular are generally guilty of the latter, often giving away the majority of the scariest scenes before the audience even has a chance to buy a ticket. In my opinion, the best trailers are often short, feature scant dialogue, and focus on atmosphere over content. Here is my list of the 10 greatest movie trailers of the 21st century:
The rare horror movie that nailed its trailer. What starts off seeming like a quiet indie romance quickly devolves into a chaotic nightmare. The quick editing works by building a sense of terror without lingering long enough to give away too many specific scares. Bonus points for the extra-creepy skipping record.
What makes this trailer so effective is the unusual absence of a soundtrack. Instead of music underneath the sparse dialogue, there's only the sound of a train slowly picking up speed, giving the sense that events are spiraling wildly out of control. The sight of a finger slowly tracing up the side of Kate Winslet's naked body is shiver-inducing, and her subtle smile at the end is perfect.
Unique on this list, the first teaser for 'Spider-Man' featured absolutely no footage from the finished film. What starts as a fairly run-of-the-mill bank robbery quickly takes a turn for the bizarre when the crooks' helicopter is caught in midair by...something. The teaser ends with the memorable image of the helicopter suspended from a web strung between the World Trade Center towers. When the towers fell on 9/11, the just-released teaser was promptly pulled from theaters. Fortunately it lives on via YouTube, where the footage that was designed to tie Spidey to iconic NYC imagery now strikes a more poignant note.
Although its nearly-six-minute runtime may test some viewers' patience, this extended trailer for the Wachowskis' sci-fi saga is a profoundly beautiful and moving experience -- and it takes that long just to introduce the film's multitudinous characters, plots and timelines, anyway. This trailer almost plays like a self-contained short film complete with a beginning, middle and end. The gorgeous music, the varied tones, exotic settings and huge cast all combine to make it a true piece of art.
Director Christopher Nolan was in the middle of his much-beloved 'Dark Knight' trilogy when he made this film, so anticipation was ridiculously high to see what he would serve up next. The trailer exploded moviegoers' minds with its mind-bending imagery, mysterious plot, and booming score.
Anticipation was equally high for this sort-of-Alien-prequel, director Ridley Scott's first science fiction film in three decades -- a genre he helped revitalize with 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner.' The trailer brilliantly evokes the original trailer for 'Alien' with the slowly-building title, the shrieking music and the terrifying sci-fi imagery. Reaction to the film itself was mixed, but everyone agreed that the trailer was a pulse-pounding thrill ride. (You can watch the 'Alien' trailer here for comparison.)
An oddly haunting choral arrangement of Radiohead's 'Creep' overlaid by Aaron Sorkin's typically fast-paced dialogue was an unexpected yet inspired combination that made a movie about Facebook look like something nobody expected it to: a smart, taut thriller.
A loft party is interrupted by an earth-shaking roar. There's a massive explosion, panicked people running for their lives, and then something hurls the Statue Of Liberty's head down the street like a bowling ball. This now-iconic teaser was famous for providing audiences with absolutely no information other than that it was produced by 'Lost' creator J.J. Abrams and that it was coming out on January 18. Heck, it didn't even tell you the title! A picture-perfect example of how to intrigue audiences, and the very definition of the word "tease."
Perfectly timed to the weirdly epic strains of The Smashing Pumpkins' 'The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning' and stuffed to the gills with WTF-inducing imagery ("Is that a glowing naked blue man?"), this teaser simultaneously delighted fans of the famous graphic novel and fascinated those unfamiliar with Alan Moore's magnum opus.
It's no coincidence that both of my top two picks are teasers that feature little-to-no dialogue perfectly edited to an attention-catching song (this time an electrifying cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'). The makers of this trailer clearly considered plot to be an unimportant factor. Instead they spent 90 seconds expertly establishing tone and building atmosphere. The teaser is filled with fleeting but eye-catching visuals, most notably a long snow-covered road. It also features one of the most genius tag lines ever: "The Feel-Bad Movie Of Christmas."
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)
Sunshine (2007)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
