Summary

• Movie trailers condense stories into essential pieces, showcasing the tone and encouraging audiences to see the film.
• The emphasis of trailers is to build intrigue without revealing too much, setting up the story in a compelling way.
• Spectacular trailers like those for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Alien create an unforgettable experience for viewers.

Movie trailers are an integral part of any movie marketing campaign, giving audiences a first look at what to expect, and revealing the general tone of the film. For nearly as long as movies have been made, marketing for those movies has been a pivotal and important part of the film industry. When a new film is made, studios will often release posters and artwork from the film to promote it, but to really get a sense of what a movie is about, a trailer is the best way to showcase the story.

Trailers have the challenging job of condensing a story that is 90 minutes or more into a reel that is just a few minutes long and still giving a taste of what the movie is about. However, a trailer shouldn't give away the biggest moments from a film, or all of the action that will be involved, or else it risks overpromising and underdelivering. Everything in a trailer needs to be essential, compelling, and encourage audiences to see the film. And over the years, few films have managed to deliver a truly spectacular trailer that stands the test of time.

15 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2011

David Fincher is an incredibly talented filmmaker, with many standout entries in the thriller genre. In 2011, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released to widespread critical acclaim, but before the movie was released, the trailer did a tremendous job in setting up the story. The sounds and colors featured in the trailer create an unsettling energy, which is then matched by the increasingly difficult-to-watch events playing out. There is a great air of mystery and references to dark moments, which builds intrigue and encourages viewers to see the film in an incredibly compelling way.

14 A Serious Man

2009

The Coen brothers are famous for their ability to create great stories that blend genres. Their 2009 hit film, A Silent Man, is no different, with its dark dramedy style. However, the trailer is distinct and stays with viewers long after watching. Unlike other dark dramedy films, the trailer employs the use of a unique mechanic to create a rhythm. Overlaid with much of the trailer is the sound of the star having his head banged against a board. The simple rhythm provides context for the film, builds empathy for the leading man, and develops curiosity about what is happening.

13 The Blair Witch Project

1999

The Blair Witch Project had a viral marketing campaign, despite the film's indie roots, and the tiny budget of less than $60,000 (via Wrapbook), which was directly benefitted by their incredible trailer. The movie was marketed as a found-film project, with ambiguity surrounding the truthfulness of the story. The footage was overlaid with text which revealed the legend of the Blair Witch, and the explorers who supposedly lost their lives. Today, the truth about The Blair Witch Project may be more widely known, but it doesn't stop the trailer from still being an impressive piece of work.

12 Watchmen

2009

Just as superhero movies were embarking on a new venture with the MCU in 2008, Watchmen was something completely different. Dark hero stories had been told before, with more violence and darker themes, but Watchmen took things to a new level with an alternate history where heroes are just as corrupt and morally ambiguous as anybody else. The trailer did a tremendous job of revealing this world, with the dark results that come from powered people who can do anything they please, building intrigue for the larger plot, and exposing a world where heroes aren't all that heroic.

11 Spider-Man

2002

Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man movie was an incredible success thanks to Tobey Maguire's performance and the work of all those involved. However, in an early trailer for the film that was discarded, there was an iconic scene that saw Spider-Man perform a spectacular stunt. Originally, the trailer would have seen Spider-Man stopping a group of bank robbers trying to escape in a helicopter in a massive web. That web was strung up between the Twin Towers in New York City, and for obvious reasons, the trailer being released just a year after the tragedy of 9/11 was decided against.

While the trailer itself appears almost entirely separate from the events of the finished project, which was released in 2002, it introduces the hero in his iconic costume with beautiful detail. The zoomed-in shots on the eye, a trademark of Raimi's other work, provide the foundation for later promotional materials with the crystal clear reflections of a New York City skyline reflected in the eyepiece. The shot and entire scene may have been revised, but the concept was certainly an exciting one, and with the images revealed in the trailer, it promised to be exciting.

10 Inception

2010

Inception is one of Christopher Nolan's greatest works with its mind-bending visuals and intricate narrative story. Supporting the film's themes and revealing some of the truly stunning visuals, the trailer did an outstanding job of introducing the world that exists within dreams and explaining the complex narrative in a way that helped to give potential viewers an insight into the story. Unlike some of Nolan's other works, Inception is one of the easiest concepts to understand from the outset, and that was aided in large part by the trailer doing a great job outlining the idea.

9 Friday The 13th

1980

Slasher horror movies peaked in the 1980s, and when Friday The 13th dropped its trailer at the beginning of the decade, it set clear expectations for the genre as a whole. Instead of filling time with loose stories and characters who won't survive the movie, the trailer is accompanied by a kill count, with scared victims appearing, and then a large number ticking up with each new character. The kill count became famous and appeared again in future trailers, with a film's kill count becoming a common statistic for action and horror films after Friday The 13th was released.

8 Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2015

Star Wars is easily one of the biggest and most recognizable franchises in cinematic history, which meant when the sequel trilogy began in 2015, it needed no introduction. However, the creatives went all out, and the trailer for The Force Awakens did a fantastic job of building excitement for the film. It perfectly balanced the old feeling that Star Wars movies were known for, as well as introducing the new cast and characters who would star in the sequel movies. From John Williams' iconic sounds to the incredible visuals that modern technology brought to the franchise, the trailer is spectacular.

7 Cloverfield

2008

Another found footage film, Cloverfield's trailer, did a great job of not giving anything big away, and still building excitement for the movie. The scene is an almost continuous shot from early in the film which sees all the action kicking off, and establishes the size and scale of the movie. With the setting in New York, something crashes from the sky and begins causing mass destruction, with one of the first victims revealed to be the Statue of Liberty. The movie was shrouded in mystery, and it paid off.

6 Man Of Steel

2013

Superman has had his story told many times in TV, films, and comics, but Man of Steel did a great job of taking a familiar story and making it new. The trailer was particularly focused on the origins of Superman, showing Kal-El as an infant, being sent to Earth, and his early years. The movie's focus primarily looked at events later in the adult Clark Kent's life, which meant the story of how he came to be Superman could be told in the trailer and avoid any spoilers for the movie itself.

After Watchmen, this is Zack Snyder's second entry on this list, with a few commonalities appearing in both film trailers. Both build the atmosphere of the story and establish a background for the events that will appear in the film. Like a prologue to a book, they focus more on establishing the context of the story, rather than diving in and revealing too much of what will appear in the finished product. This effort to reveal only what is important in terms of context makes for a powerful trailer that compliments the film, rather than overshadowing it.

The trailer for The Exorcist contains bright flashing lights and may not be suitable for those with epilepsy.

5 The Exorcist

1973

The Exorcist is one of the most disturbing and iconic horror films of all time. Remaining true to the film that it was advertising, the trailer for The Exorcist drummed up a lot of excitement as the strobing effect and intense images caused some test-screening audiences to have negative physical reactions (via CBR). The creatives then used this intense reaction to further build anticipation and intrigue around the film, and it evidently worked. The trailer doesn't reveal much apart from flashing images and some of the character's faces, but it did its job and got people talking.

4 Logan

2017

Logan's epic finale in a dark alternate future was one of the most highly anticipated superhero movies as the first R-rated Wolverine film which would deliver a more visceral and intense story than any previous. The trailer establishes a world where mutants are scarce, and Logan is now running to avoid being captured and killed, along with his old friend, Professor Charles Xavier. The trailer hits all the right notes in establishing its darker tone and seeing Logan faced with a child that is somehow linked to him, building intrigue and excitement for an outstanding project.

3 Psycho

1960

As the earliest entry on this list, Psycho also has one of the most unique trailers. Coming in at just over six and a half minutes long, the trailer features director Alfred Hitchcock leisurely touring the Psycho house set as though he is giving a tour of a true crime scene. Throughout the lengthy preview, elements of the movie are revealed as if recounting true events, adding to the air of mystery and horror of the story. This is enhanced by Hitchcock's tendency to stop in the middle of a seemingly important point, leaving a thought hanging in the air.

Hitchcock's stage presence and showmanship add to the quality of the trailer and build anticipation for the story he is introducing. But the best element of the trailer has to be the final moments when Hitchcock introduces the bathroom where the iconic murder happened, and he pulls back the curtain. This final moment brings the introduction by the director, and the film itself together in an unexpected jumpscare that comes after the director has taken his time disarming the audience. Ultimately, Hitchcock was the master of suspense, and this is clearly seen in his trailer for Psycho.

2 The Social Network

2010

The Social Network is another film directed by David Fincher. Although it is very different from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in terms of the nature of the story, both have incredibly powerful trailers. The Social Network is a story about the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg and it leans heavily into the emotional connection that comes with modern social platforms like Facebook. With a montage of images from Facebook, and a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" playing over the top, before getting into the story of Zuckerburg and the legal proceedings that dominate much of the film's runtime.

1 Alien

1979

The trailer for Ridley Scott's Alien has frequently been highlighted as one of, if not, the best trailers for any film of all time. It achieves this in several ways; the soundscape for the trailer is atmospheric and haunting, the images used don't reveal any of the plot, but they do create an atmosphere and let viewers know it will be a sci-fi horror, and it doesn't need to include any spoken words to convey the message. It also powerfully closes with the simple, yet terrifying tagline "In space no one can hear you scream."

Scott's ability to convey a message and give a snapshot of his film without revealing too much or including dialogue speaks volumes about his storytelling ability. In addition, the intrigue that it conveys and bestows on anyone who has yet to see the film can't be overstated. This trailer also includes an image of the egg and bright shining light emerging through its cracks that appeared on promotional material, despite the design of that egg not being used in the finished film. All things considered, Alien's trailer does everything that a trailer needs to and more in advertising a movie.