We have a love/hate relationship with movie trailers (don’t even get Kevin started on teaser trailers), that is, we love to talk about how much we hate them. But they’re an unavoidable fact of the business, and while we try not to feed the beast of pre-trailer teasers and trailer release date hype, we can’t ignore that our trailer posts are among the best performing parts of our news coverage – we might dislike them in general, you might dislike them in general, but apparently most of us watch them. And so, having spotlit the best of the year’s movie posters yesterday, it’s definitely worthwhile calling out the best trailers, before we move away from film marketing and onto the movies themselves for the rest of the month.
Trailer cutting may not quite attain the status of art, but it certainly is a craft, as such there are good examples and bad. The goalposts slightly move depending on whether or not you’ve seen the film and can judge the spot against the finished product in terms of how faithfully it represents the movie, but even so, it’s possible to consider the trailer in isolation of the film – and sometimes even a very poor movie can have a great trailer (as in a couple of cases below).
But we’ve teased it enough. Here are our picks for the best 20 trailers released in 2016, to be read, preferably, with a banging track playing and frequent cuts-to-black.
20. “The Neon Demon”
There are some directors whose work lends itself particularly well to the fine art of being-cut-up-into-90s-and-having-some-enigmatic-dialogue-play-though-the-slick-music and latter-day Nicolas Winding Refn, with his arch visual stylization is one. But with “The Neon Demon,” he may have outdone even himself in these stakes: detractors could say that it’s a film that works almost better as a trailer, in which we only expect tantalization and titillation, rather than depth. However, shallow though the film is, it’s also headily delicious at times, and this trailer operates like a microcosm of its empty-headed pleasures – it’s like an ocean of blood, neon, and glitter nail lacquer, that only comes up to your ankles.
19. “20th Century Women”
This year is so strong for female performances that it already feels a little like Annette Bening‘s sublime turn in Mike Mills’ heartfelt and beguiling tale of 70s motherhood (let alone Greta Gerwig’s equally amazing supporting turn) is getting a little lost in the shuffle. But the film’s outstanding performances and sunny but rueful tone are perfectly captured in this jaunty spot. Ordinarily, the use of a Talking Heads track might be a bit of a cheat, but since the band’s music has a powerful role to play in the film, even that is wholly justified. In fact, good luck “Honest Trailer” people – A24 have cut as honest a trailer for this delightful film as anyone could want.
18. “A Cure for Wellness”
Before we’ve seen the film, it’s hard to judge a trailer’s accuracy or fairness, but one that takes a film that previously hovered around the “Oh yeah, right, that thing” end of the spectrum and catapults it into the territory of “Oh yeah, right, the Gore Verbinski steampunk-tinged sci-fi film with Dane DeHaan that looks creepily beautiful” has certainly done its job right. The film may yet turn out to be dumb as paint (we won’t know till February), but at least it’s going to look great and seems a sight less noisy than Verbinski’s ‘Pirates‘ sequels and hopefully less ponderous than “The Lone Ranger.” Also: eels.
17. “Miss Sloane”
A classy spot for what is by all accounts a classy performance piece showcasing the immense Jessica Chastain at the height of her powers, this trailer for John Madden‘s political-lobbyist drama does a nice job of conveying the high-stakes intrigue of this cutthroat environment. Ostensibly classic in format, it gives every one of its enviable ensemble (Mark Strong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Waterston especially) a quick, illuminating moment. But the clip has a nice edge of modernity too in the apparently trailer-only piece-to-camera sections, and the use of that percussive guitar and very Matthew-McConaughey-in-“Wolf Of Wall Street“-style tribal “oo-omm”s (it’s Keaton Simons‘ “When I Go” sans vocal, if you’re wondering).
16. “American Pastoral”
Oh, what a rollercoaster we had with “American Pastoral” – at first wary, as we are of any new Philip Roth adaptation because they never measure up (not even “Indignation,” though some critics disagree), then actively, protectively worried when we heard that longtime favorite Ewan McGregor was stepping into the director’s chair at the last minute to make his debut. But then came the marketing – some excellent posters, and this terrific trailer, which suddenly got our hopes all the way up – it’s somber and elegiac like the book, and features some wonderful photography from DP Martin Ruhe. Sure, the use of “Mad World” is a trailer cliche by now, but at least it was a different version from Gary Jules‘ cover and fine, we’re clutching at straws, but we can’t deny how effective this spot was at raising anticipation. Then we saw the film.
