10. “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse”
“What I worry about most is they won’t look out for you like us,” Miles Morales’ mom says in the surprisingly emotional trailer for ‘Across The Spider-Verse,’ spending the entirety of the first half of the trailer echoing nods to the past, but also remind the viewer: this is a film about family. “Make sure he never forgets where he came from,” she says as Miles is quickly transported to a world filled with Legion of Spider-People. It’s bold in that it doesn’t reveal too much, doesn’t show all that much action, but is brave enough to take its time and underscore this is also a story about love, where we fit in, where we belong and seeing if we’re strong enough to rewrite our own destinies.
9. “Killers Of The Flower Moon”
“The Osage are the finest, the wealthiest, most beautiful people on this god’s earth,” Robert De Niro says ominously in the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s 3-and-a-half-hour epic about the love story and marriage at the center of such inhumane exploitation. The fine line between good intentions, having none to begin with, and a spinelessness that will destroy the lives of so many carefully threaded throughout Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in the trailer. And then, tying it all together, the spiritually wary and then exhausted Lily Gladstone, the real gem of this tragic movie. “The Killers Of The Flower Moon” is not an easy sit, and this trailer suggests all the bad moons will soon be rising.
8. “Barbie”
The trailers for “Barbie” were entertaining and funny and surely built excitement for the movie, but the hyps arguably started with the very first teaser. And yes, it’s just a parody of Stanley Kubrick’s opening to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” an iconic scene that has been homage and lampooned the world over, maybe more than any other scene in history. Still, Greta Gerwig’s opening nod to Kubrick’s classic, featured in the teaser, really transcended all past iterations and struck a chord, somehow announcing a new age for girls and a new era of dolls that would radically transform girlhood forever.
7. “The Iron Claw”
“Brothers, sons, champions.” The story behind Sean Durkin’s “The Iron Claw” wrestling family drama is tragedy. Without spoiling it, it’s a dark story, filled with tears, and this trailer, which pronounces the themes of family loyalty, loyalty to a fault, and the toxic dysfunctions of patriarchy, nails the idea of exceptional athletes and champions that are ambitious and adaptable, but still pushed too far by an overbearing father. Plus the Rush song really amplifies the idea of the ’70s and ’80s when this story takes place, and the hardscrabble working-class aspects of the story that pushed all these family members to the limits and beyond.
6. “Maestro”
“If summer doesn’t sing in you, nothing sings in you. And if nothing sings in you, you can’t make music.” Watching Bradley Cooper’s career elevate the way it has has been a wonder. From an R-rated comedy guy, a handsome actor up for seemingly every superhero role ever, but he passed them all on (aside from the Rocket Racoon voice), to a filmmaker who knocked his first film right out of the park to an auteur we expect the best from, Cooper’s transformation to A-list filmmaker has been deeply impressive. And “Maestro” looks like that next level ascension beyond the already excellent “A Star Is Born,” a film about people, their passions, and their love for each other and the gifts they bring into the world. In the “Maestro” case, that gift is music, and this thunderingly symphonic trailer gushes with raging passion, crescendoing to suggest a lifetime and a rich, wondrously life fully lived.
