The Dark Knight Rises: "The Star-Spangled Banner" has never sounded so haunting as it did for the crowd-silencing trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. The entire two-plus minute trailer is heart-pounding anticipation, from Anne Hathaway's chilling warning that "a storm is coming" to that jaw-dropping football stadium sequence. This one had us chanting along from the moment we saw it.
Les Misérables: Okay, Hathaway, you win. You totally killed it in trailers this year. First you got our hearts racing in TDKR trailer and then you gave us goosebumps in the sweeping Les Misérables trailer. Broadway fanboys and girls lost it the minute they heard the actress' take on the iconic number "I Dreamed A Dream". Sorry Susan Boyle, this one takes the cake. (Well, the bread.)
Cloud Atlas:
Oddly enough, the most musically satisfying trailer of 2012 wasn't
Les Misérables, but the five-plus minute opus for
Cloud Atlas. Using electro-rock band
M83 to set the epic tone, the eye-popping preview for
Tom Tykwer's and
the Wachowski's ambitious adaptation of
David Mitchell's beloved bestseller, it felt more like a thrilling, bizarro music video (especially when
Tom Hanks looks like
this) than a trailer, but it worked. Even after nearly six minutes we wanted more.
Life of Pi: Much like
Cloud Atlas, fans of
Yann Martel's majestic
Life of Pi wondered how on Earth this could possibly work as a movie. As soon as they witnessed the awe-inspiring trailer (seriously, when was the last time a preview made you say "wow" out loud as much as this one?) it was apparent the material had gotten into the right hands:
Ang Lee's.
Magic Mike: Steven Soderbergh's
Magic Mike may have been an unconventional drama about chasing the American dream (in a G-string) but the Brits had it right when they made a redband trailer for the male stripper drama. Sure, the U.S. trailer had that catchy
Rihanna tune,
Matthew McConaughey's swagger, and a glimpse of
Channing Tatum's sweet dance moves, but there was one key ingredient missing: butts! Butts everywhere.
The Master: Perhaps the best example of a trailer that was better than the movie in 2012 (no matter what your feelings of The Master wound up being). When we first saw it we had a ton of questions. What the hell is this all about? Why is Joaquin Phoenix so upset with Philip Seymour Hoffman? Wait, is this the movie about Scientology? Okay, the preview and the movie never really answer any of those questions, but we're still talking about it, aren't we?
Beasts of the Southern Wild: In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know, once there was a Hushpuppy (played by the unbelievable, talented well beyond her years newcomer
Quvenzhané Wallis) who narrated the beautiful, soaring trailer for indie masterpiece.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: There were plenty of movies that effectively used indie rock songs in their trailers (
Celeste and Jesse Forever with
Porcelain Raft's "Drifting In And Out" and
Silver Linings Playbook's well-timed use of
The Lumineers' "Ho Hey") but when
Imagine Dragons' "It's Time" starts up in
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, we wanted to roll down the windows and scream along on the way to the theater. Nothing below average about this trailer or this movie.
The Impossible: The impossible is making it through the heart-stopping, lump-in-your-throat trailer for the movie about the inspiring true life story of a family who, against all odds, survived the devastating 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. If they gave Oscars based on trailers alone, stars
Ewan McGregor and
Naomi Watts would already have them. Knowing what the film is about should make you cry in and of itself, but once
Damien Rice's cover of
U2's "One" begins, it's all over.
The Great Gatsby: Perhaps the most divisive trailer of 2012,
Baz Luhrmann's flashy (3D?!) imagining of the literary classic thrilled some with its stylized vision of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's world, and angered others who consider it sacred text. (What in the world is a
Jay-Z and
Kanye West collaboration doing in the 1920s?) Still, looks pretty great to us. Just too bad we'll have to wait until May 2013 to put on our beautiful shirts and see what else is in store.