5. “Babylon”
The first glimpse of “Babylon,” the latest in a long string of promised love letters to cinema, suggests an altogether bolshier tone. This ain’t your granddaddy’s love letter to movies – it’s wunderkind Damien Chazelle’s. And to an extent, it’s Margot Robbie as the early Hollywood starlet snorting up, well, the logo of the studio daring to release this movie. What follows is a frantic smash cut of debauchery, betrayal, euphoria, and downright mayhem, with Chazelle swinging for Quentin Tarantino with the horsepower of Baz Luhrmann. “We have to redefine the form,” Brad Pitt’s character mutters, and you can feel that agenda, one aiming to go harder, higher, faster, bolder, in every frame. To end with Robbie suggesting a fight with a fucking crocodile, really, is just the beginning.
4. “Decision to Leave”
The cinema of Park Chan-wook is sophisticated, high-stakes, and just plain clean. There is a fluidity to the trailer, where just 30 seconds establish the danger and allure of detective drama-cum-romance “Decision To Leave.” You could argue that such elaborate camera movements or setups are gratuitous, but it’s how director Park lures us into his world, where shimmering surfaces and spotless people have the most to hide. Plus, it’s a rare treat to watch something about a gruesome murder that actually favors the cleanup.
3. “John Wick 4”
You could argue that every new “John Wick” trailer is much of the same, but then that would be arguing that it’s not an absolute romp each time. There’s a brief glimpse of Bill Skarsgård, as well as pop sensation Rina Sawayama – both major casting coups – and the perfect line reading that “no one, not even you, can kill everyone,” to Keanu Reeves’ John Wick – even though the following footage suggests the opposite. Expect more martial arts in this one, and, well, who knows what kind of plot – but Reeves’ weirdly ASMR agreement that he’s ready for this is all we need.
2. “The Fabelmans”
Only one filmmaker can get away with so much nostalgia and schmaltz you’re forced to cry within the first few frames of anything, especially when you’re told that “movies are dreams.” But at this point, can you really distrust Steven Spielberg? His personal family portrait pens, once more, a love letter to cinema, but framed through the dissolution of his parent’s marriage. The idea of family, of memory (and so, of Thanksgiving) is out in full force in the trailer for “The Fabelmans,” which, in the brief snippet, already lines up Michelle Williams and Paul Dano for all possible awards. There’s no gently teasing the epic scale of emotion, loss, and love Spielberg promises here – cinematic strings thrust us all the way into a film with a heart so big that only one man could have made it. Why shouldn’t that be celebrated?
1. “The Northman”
“Your fate is set, and you cannot escape it,” a freakish Willem Dafoe warns. It’s a story of violent legacy in Robert Eggers’ Viking epic, but also one with haunting circumstances – and that foul, murky air comes to the fore in the bloody trailer. Alexander Skarsgård fully comes into his own (as Anya Taylor-Joy tells him that his “strength breaks bones”) as he repeats the mantra that holds so much – fear, terror, impossible strength, and awfully entertaining cinema: I will avenge you father, I will save you, mother, I will kill you Fjölnir.”
