20. “The Holdovers”
“You just earned yourself another detention, sir!”
“Being here with you is already one big detention!”
“Sonofabitch, that’s another detention!”
A Thanksgiving, rolling into the holiday’s movie, it’s a rather perfect setup for the season it was released into. In Alexander Payne’s ‘70s throwback picture, which looks and feels very much like a Hal Ashby movie, an embittered history teacher (Paul Giamatti) at a remote prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student who has no place to go. From its faux throwback vintage Focus Featured logo (the company was formed in 2002) to its vintage fonts, to the melancholy country song playing within that sounds like Gordon Lightfoot, Payne seems to nail everything about this era and style of movie. With a little soulfulness and sadness to round things out, everything about this bittersweet movie looks funny and engaging.
19. “Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes”
When you’ve made a rather perfect franchise trilogy, “The Dark Knight” series, or Matt Reeves’ “Planet Of The Apes” films, the question always remains: “why?” Why would you even try and top it, if the previous series was so great? Well, first of all, this is Hollywood, and there’s no such thing as idling I.P.; that’s just the burden of all brands and the way they can get abused. But take what Matt Reeves (yes, that same great filmmaker ironically) did with “The Batman,” and how he breathed new life into the franchise, even by following much of the realistic mode that Christopher Nolan did. It’s a little too early to tell, but so far, that’s exactly what it looks like filmmaker Wes Ball did with “Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes”: treat the franchise seriously and with respect, imagine it with a gritty, visceral and realistic-looking feel that grounds the fantastical core elements, and build into it what seems like a Shakespearean grandeur that looks epic and operatic. Fingers crossed, but we are sold.
18. “Napoleon”
“I’m not built like other men,” Joaquin Phoenix says hilariously anachronistically in the trailer for “Napoleon” which is soon taken over by the thundering pulse of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” c’mon, who says Ridley Scott has no sense of humor? With allusions to Alexander The Great, Vanessa Kirby splitting her legs open for JP, and lines like, “Whose country are we in? Mine!” there just is no subtlety in this trailer, but that’s the point: it goes big, and it goes for broke with lots of ridiculous scale and epic scope to entice the viewer to get their butts to the theater.
17. “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny”
Sometimes, a trailer can really evoke our sense of nostalgia in a meaningful way. And look, the official trailer for ‘Dial Of Destiny’ and the way it uses The Rolling Stones banger to transport the audience accustomed to their franchise in an older era into a new decade is clever. But this patient trailer for “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny,” and the way it plinks away at the iconic theme while never really showing the title character in full view until the key moment of renewal, is really evocative. And when the theme finally hits and the trailer explodes, ending on that perfect note of Indy humor, man, it really brings all the feels.
16. “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3”
“We were gone for quite a while,” Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) says at the top of the ‘Guardians Vol 3’ trailer, acknowledging the long gap between ‘Vol 2.’ (2017) and the final installment (2023), thanks to Gunn’s Disney firing, rehiring, making a “Suicide Squad” movie and then returning to Marvel finally. This trailer arrives in a big melodramatic fashion, but of course, always stops for a good joke. Set to an epic symphonized version of Spacehog’s “In The Meantime,” the trailer suggests everything you want from a “final” Guardians film: family dramas, tears, laughs, tragedy, big heart, and spectacle, and these oddball losers finally taking a stand against the horrible past that created them. Tell me you don’t tear up when Rocket solemnly says, “We’ll all fly away together, one last time. Into the forever.”