Year in Review: Terry's Top Ten Films of 2016

It is that time of year once again.  Finally, I have found enough time to watch enough films to compile a top ten list from the year before.  My rule is I need to at least make it through the year's Best Picture nominees before I can say my top ten list is complete.

2016 was an interesting year in film.  The Oscars are no longer as white as everyone thought they were, with three Best Picture nominees featuring African-American leads as well as Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress going to African-Americans.  There were films that were throwbacks to past glory years of cinema (La La Land, Hell or High Water) while you had other films addressing very current and modern topics (Moonlight, Lion).  Comic book movies made bank at the box office, while Star Wars and Harry Potter resurfaced once again.  No matter which genre you were looking at, there was quality to be found if you looked hard enough.  This led to a compilation of films at the top of my list that are as varied as they are excellent.

Honorable Mentions

Finding Dory

(dir. by Andrew Stanton & Angus MacLane)

Swiss Army Man

(dir. by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)

Zootopia

(dir. by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, & Rich Moore)

Hell or High Water

(dir. by David Mackenzie)

10.  Hidden Figures

(dir. by Theodore Melfi)

The first film on my list is a film that deals with a subject I love.  The Space Race is one of my favorite parts of history, and Hidden Figures discusses an otherwise untold story of a group of African American women who were essential to the work NASA did in getting men in space and on the moon.  The film was made to appeal to a family audience and so was made a little more vanilla than it could have been, but the impact is still there.  Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae have inspired performances as the three leaders of this movement.  It is a great combination of all the aspects of American history during that time: Space Race and Civil Rights movement.  I loved this film and all it stood for.

9.  Nocturnal Animals

(dir. by Tom Ford)

This fascinating film is one of those experiences that gets stuck in your head in a way you can't shake.  Amy Adams plays an art gallery owner that seems to be distracted and haunted by several things.  She is haunted by her past, which soon gets combined with being haunted by a novel sent to her by her ex-husband.  As the parallel stories of present day, flashbacks, and narrative from the novel are told, you begin to lose track of what is actually real, but I think that's the point.  All the stories seem to complement each other in this twisted thriller unravels into a fascinating piece of art worthy of Tom Ford's reputation.  Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson also provide award-worthy performances in supporting roles as a killer and the man out to find justice.

8.  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

(dir. by David Yates)

I became a late fan of the Harry Potter series, but a very quick fan.  When I heard they were starting up a spin-off series, I was about as skeptical as I was when I first heard about Harry Potter.  Spin-offs almost never go well.  However, I was amazed at what they developed.  The Harry Potter universe is as rich and fascinating as any cinematic universe that has ever been developed.  Newt Scamander's trunk of fantastic beasts just continues to explore more aspects of this universe.  What I loved most about this film is it has everything you love about Harry Potter, but it is all adults.  This is not the little kid movie that started this whole magical ride.  This is a film that starts a new era of new stories and new characters for us all to fall in love with.  I hope they never stop expanding on what this universe can be.

7.  Lion

(dir. by Garth Davis)

Dev Patel became a breakout star in 2008 with Slumdog Millionaire playing the grown-up version of a boy that had a rough childhood in India.  I loved that movie.  Last year, Dev Petel received his first Oscar nomination for playing the grown-up version of a boy that had a rough childhood in India.  I loved this movie too!  There are definitely some similarities between Slumdog Millionaire and Lion, but they are different enough to make the two experiences vastly different.  Lion is a true story about Saroo, a young boy who finds himself separated from his family and thousands of miles from home.  Eventually, he finds himself in an orphanage and gets adopted by an Australian family.  As an adult, Saroo decides to use Google Earth to try and find his way back home.  This film breaks your heart and spends the whole movie putting it back together again.  You know how it is going to end, but it doesn't make the payoff any less powerful.  Dev Petel validates that he is a quality actor that we need to see on screen much more often than we do.

6.  Silence

(dir. by Martin Scorsese)

Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to Japan to look for their mentor in the 1600's.  Sounds like a terrible movie that would never get made.  Oh, Martin Scorsese made it?  Nevermind, this will be a masterpiece.  And that is exactly what it is.  Scorsese is one of the greatest storytellers of our time as he brings to life this world we had no clue would be so fascinating.  Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver solidify their place with some of the best young actors working today.  Liam Neeson resurrects his career in a beautiful performance as a tortured priest.  However, this film does not get made without Scorsese.  There are few directors that draw the attention of the entire industry simply for making a film.  Scorsese is one of those directors, and Silence will go down as just another masterpiece in a career filled with them.

5.  La La Land

(dir. by Damien Chazelle)

By the time I saw La La Land, the hype had been built up to monumental levels.  I wish I had seen it without any expectations or knowing as much as I knew.  If that had happened, I am sure I would have loved it even more than I did.  This throwback to classic original movie musicals of the 50's and 60's touches a sentimental nerve in a similar way 2011's The Artist did.  Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling were perfect in their starring roles as the film dazzled through song and wonderful visual images.  It was probably the prettiest movie of the year, which is impressive considering there was a Scorsese film and a Tom Ford film.  It is one of those films that makes you happy from start to finish.  With our world where it is, having an escape like this is so needed from time to time.

4.  Deadpool

(dir. by Tim Miller)

From possibly the most innocent and feel-good movie of the year to a film that just punches you in the face.  Deadpool took advantage of the current craze of superhero movies and flipped it on its head to redefine the what the genre could be.  Ryan Reynolds is to Deadpool as Robert Downey, Jr. is to Iron Man.  He just is.  It is one of the most naturally played roles I have ever seen.  He is crass, self-deprecating, self-aware, and ridiculously entertaining.  It also redefined the genre in a similar way to Downey's first turn as Iron Man.  For someone who loves comic book movies to begin with, Deadpool is a deformed head and shoulders above the rest.

3.  Manchester by the Sea

(dir. by Kenneth Lonergan)

Like I said, this list has a wide variety of films.  With this installment, we have a film about grief, loss, and living with one's past.  Casey Affleck plays the lead, haunted by his past while trying to mourn his brother's death with his nephew.  I haven't seen many movies more real than this.  Every scene feels completely genuine as you forget you are watching actors and not people just living out their lives.  That is a testament to the performances by Affleck, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, and Kyle Chandler.  It also shows the skill of Kenneth Lonergan, an accomplished screenwriter that picks his directed movies very carefully and sparingly (only his third directed film).  This film will have you crying one minute, laughing the next, and fascinated from start to finish.

2.  Arrival

(dir. by Denis Villeneuve)

This is a film that becomes an obsession much like the aliens become to Amy Adams.  In an era of big budget blockbusters, here you have a subtle and quiet sci-fi movie that could only be compared to the recent Christopher Nolan films.  Several spacecraft land on earth quietly and mysteriously.  The US military entrusts Louise Banks, a linguistics professor played by Adams, to find a way to communicate with the aliens and discover what they want.  The quiet intensity draws you in more and more every minute as it all builds to the ending that brings clarity to it all.  It is as shocking as it is quiet and understated.  I loved every minute of it and would have been perfectly content to name this my top film of the year.

1.  O.J.: Made in America

(dir. by Ezra Edelman)

To show just how much variety this year's top films have, my number one is an 8 hour documentary.  However, I rarely become so engrossed in something as I was in this twisted story that no one would believe unless it were true.  O.J.: Made in America tells of the meteoric rise and fall of football star and actor O.J. Simpson, including his very public trial for the murder of his wife.  However, it is so much more than just a story of one man.  It is the story of an entire race and an entire city.  Without knowing the whole story, you would never fully grasp everything that happened in this one man's life.  I watched this, like most did, as a miniseries that aired on ESPN.  It did get a limited cinematic release as one complete saga, which qualifies it as one film.  I somewhat feel like I'm cheating putting this as my top film of the year, but when it is considered as a complete 8 hour saga, nothing else even comes close to being as good as this.

Power Rankings: Top 10 Space Movies

Space: the final frontier. It's a place full of wonder, adventure, and, of course, terror.  They say no one can hear you scream in space, but I bet that with this week's Top Ten, some wish they could've been heard.

With the upcoming release of Star Trek Beyond, I have decided to count down the top ten space movies.  As with every top ten list, some will just barely miss making the cut, and I am bound to leave some off.  You will find that on my list there will be a good variety of genres represented.  So, without further ado - "Honorable Mention" and "what I haven't seen yet time"!

What I need to see (like now): 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Sunshine, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Honorable Mentions: Serenity, The Right Stuff, Titan A.E., Total Recall (1990), Spaceballs, Pitch Black, Starship Troopers, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Star Trek (2009)

10. Guardians of the Galaxy  (James Gunn)

When this movie was first announced, I was very skeptical about whether it would be good or not, and I was totally unfamiliar of the source material.  I thought that Marvel was finally going to fail, because no movie with a talking raccoon or a tree could be good.  When I saw, however I quickly ate my words.  Guardians of the Galaxy was a pleasant surprise and actually made my Number #7 film of 2014.  This film made Chris Pratt a super star.  Pratt leads an amazing cast with the likes of  Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Glen Close, John C. Rielly and Benicio Del Toro.  It also has a killer soundtrack, that reminds me of something Tarantino might use for one of his films (Pulp Fiction).  James Gunn (Super), proved that he can direct on a much bigger scale but still stay in the Marvel Cinematic Universe space.  He made this film fun and entertaining to say the least.

9. The Martian (Ridley Scott) 

Ridley Scott - who we might see again on this list - directed one of the biggest film surprises of 2015 for me.  From the first trailers that came out,  it seemed bland, and my initial reaction was  unimpressed.  I thought they showed us to much in the trailers.  I was wrong.  The film was funny and entertaining, while still giving us a story we can get behind and cheer for.  Matt Damon gives one of his best performances since Good Will Hunting.  Damon leads an all-star cast, with the likes of  Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wigg, Sean Bean, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.  I was happy that Damon and Scott were both nominated for their respected categories at this years Oscars.  It's a beautifully shot film, and it  revitalized Ridley Scott's career.  I'm looking forward to watching this again, sooner rather than later.

8.  Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)

Gravity isn't a film - it's an experience.  This film doesn't rely on star power, though it does star  Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, and Ed Harris.  The driving force of this film is the amazing special effects, which will blow you away.  They will make your heart palpitate as you try to catch your breathe at each close call that happen to Bullock.  Other than the effects, the other star is the director Cuaron.  He directed an amazing film with a lot of moving parts.  Gravity took home a total seven Oscars (Directing, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects)

7. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)

 One of the best Pixar films to date.  Wall-E is about a curious little waste collector droid who inadvertently embarks on a journey into space, one that will ultimately decide the fate of  mankind.  It seems like every time Pixar makes a film, it's gold.  Wall-E might not say much -and he doesn't have to. Pixar does such a good job making us feel what he is feeling through his expressions and mannerisms.  The animation is so crisp and fantastic, and supporting a wonderful color pallet.  The Academy also loved this film too, nominating it six times (Animated Feature, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing).  It picked up the win for Best Animated Feature.

6. Alien (Ridley Scott)

Ridley Scott once again makes my list, this time with a totally different type of film.  Alien, isn't only a great space film, it is a great horror film.  I still remember my first viewing - being scared and on edge.  The first time you see the xenomorph, I jumped out of my seat.  Along with the chills, we were given one of the greatest movie heroines of all-time, Ellen Ripley.  With her portrayal of Ripley, Siqourney Weaver cemented herself as one of the greatest action stars as well, especially after her second time around with the character.  It won one Oscar (Visual Effects) and was nominated for another (Art Direction) as well.  Still one of the greatest tag lines for any movies, "In space no one can hear you scream".

5. Star Wars: A New Hope (George Lucas)

George Lucas: the creator of the greatest movie universe of all-time.  Where would we all be without Star Wars?  Say what you will about him now - the man is a genius.  He gave us some of the best characters, worlds, and experiences we will all remember.  A New Hope introduced us to the timeless characters of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C3PO.  The stamp that these characters have left on our society will forever be ingrained in our minds.  I know my child hood was formed by hokey religions, ancient weapons, a smuggler, a walking carpet, two droids, and the menacing golden lungs of the greatest Sith we all know.

4. Moon (Duncan Jones)

Sam Rockwell stars as astronaut Sam Bell, who is working on a lunar base by himself for three years.  What a trippy film that will make you think, 'what is real, and what is in my head'.  Rockwell is such an underrated actor and it's great to seem him carry a film and deliver it with flawless execution.  Kevin Spacey, on the other hand gives us one of the best voice-over performances in recent memory, maybe behind Scarlett Johansson (Her).  Duncan Jones delivers a great film, one you must check out.

3. Aliens (James Cameron)

This times it's war!  The Alien franchise makes another appearance on this 'best of' list', and it's very deserving.  Just like what he did for T2: Judgement Day, James Cameron, took a great movie and made it better.  He didn't just improve the action but made more compelling characters in the process.  Sigourney Weaver, reprises her role as Ripley, as well as enshrine her name as the most bad-ass female character ever.  She doesn't need the boys to save her - the boys need her!  Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton, also join this universe and try their hardest to take down some xenomorphs as well.

2. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner)

Like the previous film on this list, who said sequels can't bet better than the original?  Well, The Empire Strikes Back, is a far superior film than A New Hope.  It has a darker and more powerful tone, but is still grounded in the universe that George Lucas has created.  Growing up, this was my least favorite film in the original series - but what did I know, right?  As I grew, I began to appreciate it as more than just a Star Wars film, but as a work of cinema gold.  Empire is one of my favorite films of all time.  All of our favorite characters are back (Luke, Leia, Han) and we are introduced to some new ones as well (Boba Fett, Lando, Yoda).  Let's not forget to mention, Darth Vader - an iconic villain that strikes fear even in us scruffy-looking nerf herders.    

1. Apollo 13 (Ron Howard)

It's quite fitting that my number one space film would be based on an actual event.  Apollo 13, tells the daring story of how NASA was able to get the Apollo 13 space shuttle back to Earth safely.  This film is a triumph of the human spirit and the "never give up" attitude we should always have.  It's beautifully directed by Ron Howard and has some of the best performances you will see by a cast: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise.  This film received a lot of Academy love too, winning two Oscars (Best Sound, Best Editing) and nominated for seven others (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris) , Best Supporting Actress (Kathleen Quinlan), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score).  Apollo 13 is one of Almost Sideways' favorite films, and we highly recommend it to you!

Well that's my list!  What's your favorite space film?  Comment below and let me know! 

Thanks again for reading!

Adam      

  

Power Rankings: Top Ten Movie Trailers

            I hate to admit this, but I love movie trailers.  I love them so much that I turn into Woody Allen in Annie Hall if I’m even a minute late arriving at the theater to see a movie – I simply won’t go in to see it.  The most basic function of a movie trailer is to excite viewers about an upcoming motion picture so much that they pay money to see it, even if their better instincts (and Rotten Tomatoes) inform them otherwise.  But to me, the best movie trailers are so much more than that.  They offer a brief, fleeting glimpse into the essence of a movie, which sounds a lot easier than it actually is.  This is because essence is something that goes beyond a simple snapshot of a film’s plot and genre and major actors; it is an intangible quality that most closely resembles a person’s soul.  And how do you tell a group of strangers about your soul?  The same group of strangers, no less, who have paid money to bear witness to another movie’s soul? 

            To demonstrate a film’s essence in three minutes or less, while not spoiling any major features of plot and dialogue and while also avoiding gratuitous sex, language, and violence, all while maintaining the major M.O. of advertising to consumers and receiving virtually no public accolades for the craftsmanship involved, is an arduous task to say the least.  This is why I am of the firm belief that many of the best trailers regularly exceed the quality of the films they advertise.  I don’t think anyone who saw the trailer for Interstellar would disagree.

            Below is a list of my favorite ten trailers.  Most of these were made for films released in the last couple of decades, which is no accident – seeing these trailers in the darkness and majesty of a movie theater (many of which without any prior knowledge of the movie they advertised) provided for awesome, unforgettable experiences.  And eventually seeing the movies sometimes lived up to that experience, and sometimes did not.  That’s OK.  Of course, it’s difficult to come up with strict criteria for what makes these trailers so great.  Without a doubt, all of them gave me great excitement and anticipation to go back to the theater and spend money.  But I think capturing a movie’s essence is what makes a trailer truly exceptional.  The following top ten trailers were so outstanding that, in my mind, they transcended their status as what scholar Jonathan Gray postulates as paratexts, but became great short films in their own right.

Honorable Mention

Manon of the Spring (1986)

Magnolia (1999)

Kill Bill (2003)

INLAND EMPIRE (2006)

Watchmen (2009)

10. In The Line of Fire (1993)

In some ways, this trailer is the most conventional and old-fashioned entry on this list: A corny and woefully outdated “voice-of-god” narrator and the all-American hero, Clint Eastwood, pulling out his handgun and letting the audience know that any chance of the bad guy winning “is not going to happen.”  But visually, this trailer is bold and unforgettable – so much so that it spawned controversy from morally uptight audiences who first saw it in spring of 1993.  Using the hands of a clock as a circular target for a firearm is creative enough; spinning the 6 from “November 22, 1963” upside down to create “1993” is straight-up ingenious.  Meanwhile, the best part of the actual movie is kept firmly intact but without even showing us a face: John Malkovich’s menacing, maniacal would-be assassin Mitch Leary, one of the great movie villains of the last 25 years.  But who needs Malkovich’s face when you have dialogue like this: “I see you, Frank.  I see you standing over the grave of another dead president.”  Subtlety, this preview may lack, but it makes up for it in the area of gripping psychological dread and excitement.  I love the comment under the YouTube clip by hungwilliam, who observes: “i remember seeing this trailer in san jose and the theater went apeshit.”  I couldn’t have put it better myself.

9. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

David Fincher must know some talented people in advertising because his films always boast strong trailers (see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and #5 on this list).  I was one of the initial skeptics of Fincher’s plans to remake what had already been an adequate and well-distributed Swedish film, but seeing this trailer made me an immediate convert.  The music entirely creates the atmosphere, and unlike some of Fincher’s other trailers, and the song used here (Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”) is included in the actual film.  The trailer uses nonstop rapid-fire imagery to tell us that the movie involves Daniel Craig, an unsolved murder of some kind, and cold weather.  That’s about it; the precise details are left conspicuously vague, which only boosts our desire to understand how all these disparate pieces are connected (I’m not sure Fincher’s movie answers that for us either, but that’s another story).  The only recurring series of shots comes from the front windshield of (presumably) a car moving along a snowy dirt driveway toward an ominous mansion.  Then, in absurdly oversized capital letters coinciding with the song’s abrasive downbeat: “THE FEEL-BAD MOVIE OF CHRISTMAS.”  Perfect.  The trailer has no beef with telling audiences that most of them will probably not want to see this movie, but for those few souls with the audacity to go back and see it – well, the trailer did warn you.

8. Little Children (2006)

I probably watched this trailer a good 50 times in 2006.  The first 10-20 times were because I was so excited about the project (Todd Field’s follow-up to In the Bedroom and an adaptation of a terrific novel by Tom Perrotta), but the more I watched it, the more I realized how brilliantly crafted the trailer really was.  It is sprinkled with ingenious graphic match cuts (such as 0:23 and 0:49) as well fantastic images from the film which admittedly gives away much of the story’s thrust, but still manages to maintain eroticism and sensuality.  Then there’s the motif of the oncoming locomotive arriving head-on at a crossing section – an image which the trailer wisely never feels the need to show, but still captures as a perfect metaphor for the emotional head-on collisions depicted in Little Children.  Even better is the fact that the trailer completely ignores all the Jackie Earle Haley scenes, which I thought were by far the worst thing about the film.  At any given moment, there are tens of hundreds of films being released about adulterous affairs or cheating or some component of sexual passion.  Little Children’s trailer could have been a banal retread of those same stories told in a wholly conventional fashion, but by emphasizing the characters’ vulnerabilities and desperations within the trap of suburbia, the trailer feels remarkably fresh and powerful.

7. Schindler’s List (1993)

This is obviously a stunning trailer to watch today, but I’ve always wondered about its reception among movie audiences in (the internet-less) 1993.  Did the first audiences of this trailer think this was for a documentary about the Holocaust?  Did they believe this was a movie from the 1940s that was getting rereleased for some reason?  How could they watch this trailer and proceed to enjoy watching dinosaurs chasing Jeff Goldblum for two hours?  The trailer tells us at the end that Schindler’s List is a film by Steven Spielberg; even for those at the time who knew of Spielberg’s involvement with the project, seeing this trailer must have taken them aback.  Watching it today, it still leaves you speechless due to the unfettered and grim realism of the Holocaust it vividly depicts.  Screw the morally righteous critics of In the Line of Fire’s trailer; this is the 1993 movie preview that would have left me emotionally traumatized.  Another fascinating and more subtle aspect of this trailer is how Liam Neeson’s portrayal Oskar Schindler is depicted: The trailer doesn’t tell us outright who he is or even what the title list refers to – only that “the list is life.”  This makes the trailer succeed in showing audiences two sides of the Holocaust which have never been explored before in film – the visceral reality of Schindler’s List’s visual style, as well as the significant story it tells. 

6. Breaking Bad – The Final Episodes (2013)

OK, OK, I had to cheat a little here.  Technically, Breaking Bad is not a film and technically this trailer was not shown in movie theaters but instead during reruns of the show’s first four-and-a-half seasons airing on AMC during the summer of 2013.  But if you were a fan of the show at the time, you could not contain your total and complete giddiness after seeing this trailer.  Like many of the entries on this list, the concept of the trailer is simple: Walter White’s voice reciting an ominous poem alongside revolving images of Albuquerque that the show’s fans may recognize from earlier seasons.  In trailers like this, simplicity is an asset since it is unnecessary to rehash all of the undue details of what has transpired to bring the story to this point (redundancy and reductionism which fans would understandably rebel against).  And spoiling the upcoming episodes is obviously out of the question.  What’s great about this trailer is how the poem’s recitation implies that Walter White, like King Ozymandias, has all the land under his thumb and controls everything and everybody – particularly since every image we see in some ways connects closely with his ascent to the top.  And yet, we see no characters from the show and the only physical manifestation of Walter White is his hat -- the same hat he put on to transform himself into Heisenberg.  This leaves the viewer with incredible hunger to see what happens next.  We know that Walter White is gone, the authorities believe that Heisenberg is untraceable, and all that is left a “colossal wreck, boundless and bare.” 

5. The Social Network (2010)

The other Fincher film on this list, and probably the most discussed trailer of the last ten years.  It has been so widely seen and so talked about and so subsequently universally lauded that the contrarian side of myself did not initially include it on this list for fear of being unoriginal.  But watching the trailer again, it is so apparent how awesome and striking it is that excluding it from this list would seriously endanger my credibility here.  So what do I love about this trailer?  Well, like everyone else, the eerie and atmospheric children’s chorus cover of Radiohead’s “Creep,” which provides a perfect metaphor for the juvenilization of Facebook users obsessed with selfies and profile pics.  And like everyone else, I loved the Aaron Sorkin dialogue being delivered at the unwieldy pace of two thousand words per minute, but also brilliantly encapsulating the explosive and volatile nature of Mark Zuckerberg’s genius.  The trailer’s startlingly unconventional structure (for the first 50 seconds, using only pictures from anonymous Facebook users) made every moviegoer in 2010 put their smartphone down and actually pay attention to the screen (I can confirm this because I was there).  For those skeptical that the creation of Facebook was juicy enough to merit a major Hollywood blockbuster, the film’s clever tagline puts all doubt to rest: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”  More than any trailer I can think of, this one announces The Social Network not only as a film, but as a social and cultural event of great significance. 

 4. The Shining (1980) 

By far, the most terrifying trailer ever made, anywhere or any time.  Even replaying it in my head as I write about it freaks me out.  According to IMDb, the MPAA did not allow blood to be depicted in trailers, so in order to get around this, Stanley Kubrick somehow convinced the ratings board that this trailer didn’t show blood gushing out of the elevators, but actually rusty water.  Right.  I suppose we can thank the ratings board for their stupidity and gullibility or else this iconic trailer might have never seen the light of day.  First and foremost, the trailer does a tremendous job of building up suspense right away, as the bizarre synth soundtrack grows louder and more grating to hear and we know that something has to happen to those elevator doors at some point, right?  The composition of the shot is rigidly symmetrical and balanced, which only adds to abhorrent horror of streams of blood dismantling the equal proportions inside the frame.  The blood then blurs over the camera lens, generating the effect of the viewer drowning in it.  It’s just so . . . wrong.  It doesn’t make any rational sense how blood could pour out of an elevator shaft like that and actually flood the entire surface of a building’s lobby.  But that is precisely what The Shining does so well – create surreal distortions that profoundly disturb our rational sensibilities.  Worse yet: The trailer gives us no indication as to the exact insidious ways all that blood was collected, stored, and eventually overrun. Its spoof was pretty blood-curdling too.    

3. Talk to Her (2002)

When first thinking about constructing this list, I speculated that many of the most imaginative and powerful trailers would be foreign-language films.  Since most trailers avoid using subtitles (because Hollywood studios assume most audiences have an IQ of 20), the trailers for international films would have to rely more on evocative visual imagery and sounds.  In theory this is true, but unfortunately, the vast majority of trailers for foreign films I found simply used a Don LaFontaine-like voiceover, along with corny and artificial sound cues, to pander a vastly oversimplified version of the otherwise striking film to stupid American audiences.  The one major example for which this was not the case was Talk to Her.  This is a trailer that strips away any rote adherence to standardized form, content, and flow of modern-day movie trailers.  There are no character introductions, no voiceovers, and no linkages between the bewilderingly disparate images depicted.  Watching this trailer, there is zero percent chance you could glean anything meaningful regarding what the film is about.  In fact, the trailer is so esoteric that the effect is comical: How could a single film coherently contain a female bullfighter, a dance troupe, comatose bodies, blood transfusions, and most aberrant of all, a 1920s-style black-and-white film about a 6-inch man talking to a full-grown woman lying in bed?  It verges on farce.  Obviously if you’ve seen the film, you know the bizarre ways these images intersect, but if you’re watching the trailer “cold,” you’re completely lost.  But lost in the best possible way a movie trailer can make you feel.    

2. The Tree of Life (2011)

For anyone that still doubts the artistic validity and integrity of trailers, this one (along with my choice for #1) should be exhibits 1a and 1b for the argument that trailers can be beautiful and timeless works of art, just like the films they represent.  What’s additionally impressive about the trailer for The Tree of Life is that it stays true to the surreal and oft-discussed perplexity of Terrence Malick’s mode of storytelling.  There’s some sense of linear cohesion here – we know who the characters are and that the boy in the narration presumably grows up to be Sean Penn – but the trailer doesn’t shy away from Malick’s dreamlike imagery and relentless camera movements.  The trailer makes us feel like the newborn child shown at the opening in the way that shapes, objects, and movements are transformed into beautiful and puzzling new things uncovered for the first time.  The narration deemphasizes straightforward coherence and instead offers bewildering aphorisms which somehow match the startling beauty of the images shown.  There’s also the ethereal music which, as is typical for Malick’s films, is classical and profound: Bedrich Smetana’s “The Moldau” plays for the trailer’s first half and eventually morphs into a ravishing chorus from “Funeral March” by Patrick Cassidy.  Unlike most of the trailers on this list, the trailer for The Tree of Life does not refrain from boldly displaying the film’s most beautiful and important moments, which enables it to be mercifully free of any impulse for commerciality or artistic compromise.  It is such a good trailer that it makes you forget that it is advertising anything.

1. Far From Heaven (2002)

Back in 2002, I saw this trailer at a screening of Moonlight Mile, a film I was excited to see and hoped to be moved by.  I did indeed exit the theater emotionally stunned and devastated, but not by Moonlight Mile – instead by the trailer for Far From Heaven.  When I saw that movie a few weeks later, I was not disappointed in the least, but was nonetheless a little surprised how different the trailer was from the actual film.  Far From Heaven attempts to recreate the sights, sounds, and feelings of a Douglas Sirk film without any sort of parody or reflexivity – stylistically, it’s identical to a movie which would have been made in 1957.  I suspect the studio overseeing the trailer thought it risky to follow suit by advertising the film in the excessively theatrical way movies were advertised in 1957; as a result, in one of the smarter moves made by Hollywood PR people, the trailer for Far From Heaven was made in a sleek, modern, subtle, and extremely elegant style.  Expertly using the ravishing and mostly forgotten John Barry theme from Indecent Proposal, the trailer depicts suburban life in the 1950s which is shown as idyllic in many ways, while repressed and deeply sad in others.  The melodious strings of the Barry score reinforce that Far From Heaven firmly belongs to the well-worn genre of “woman’s picture,” but does not paint the film as outdated, corny, or archaic.  Instead, the vibrant colors of the leaves on the trees and the walls and the costumes paint an extremely vivid universe, but also a world where, as the titles inform us, the colors may only be used to mask unhappiness.  The spoken lines from the film – the observations that sometimes it’s the people outside our world that we confide in best, and that we mostly fail in the kind of ideal love that tells us to abandon all our plans – ring beautifully observant and quietly tell us everything we need to know about the film.  It’s also a short trailer, running only a scant 69 seconds, but that abruptness leaves us with an indomitable impression that the trailer has only hinted at the powerful emotional punches that this film carries.  Perhaps the trailer for Far From Heaven is an unconventional choice for best ever – it’s not really the kind of trailer that makes audiences stand up in the theater and holler and cheer – but it communicates Far From Heaven’s essence more effectively and enticingly than any other trailer I’ve ever seen.   

Suggestions?  Disagreements?  Upset that I left off trailers featuring Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu?  Well rewind that and let me know below.