15. Another Round
Hey, when the premise of your movie is “four Danish high school teachers try being constantly drunk to improve their lives,” my money is all yours. Thomas Vinterberg and Mads Mikkelsen are a rock-solid team, whose collaborations more than deserve their buzz (haha). The trailer submits a boozy monkey’s paw, humorous but honest, and devoid of any kind of moralizing sap.
14. Dick Johnson Is Dead
Dick Johnson Is Dead‘s title gets right to the point, and the film’s trailer is no different. The documentary is about a director (Kirsten Johnson) repeatedly staging the death of her father, who is suffering from dementia. Not only does the trailer communicate dichotomously joyful darkness, but it does so while sowing the seeds of the film’s ultimate purpose: a love letter, albeit macabre, from a daughter to her father as the two confront the latter’s inevitable death.
13. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
If ever a trailer deserved credit for playing its cards close to its chest, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm deserves that credit for not even mentioning Rudy Giuliani in the first look at the return of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s most famous character. Then again, even without the film’s biggest talking point, the incredulous laughs and satirical one-upping do more than enough to sell the film. The trailer wastes no time in setting up Borat’s return to America and introducing the daughter he brought with him. From there we get a look at some truly shocking and hysterical moments, including an unforgettable father/daughter dance and the crashing of a Republican conference. But of course — because what else would we expect from Borat? — we know that the best is still to come. (Anna Swanson)
12. A Quiet Place Part II
The 2018 movie A Quiet Place was a big ole’ horror hit with a formidable foe: monsters who hunt via sound. While the original takes place long after humanity’s collapse into survival-by-silence, the trailer for its sequel opens with a (very intense!) vision of how things went down when the creatures first arrived. The Abbotts are, like everyone else, thrown into chaos. As destruction and panic erupt around them in a single, anxious take, we’re given a sense of the catastrophe that predicated the post-apocalypse. We then pick back up where the first film left us: the remaining Abbots are on the move once again. And, like most apocalypses, the big, alien monsters aren’t the biggest threat.
11. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Remember bars? Remember that one bar that felt like it was your bar? Well, if you’re missing that feeling you should really watch Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, or at the very least, its trailer. The documentary blends fact and fiction into one heck of a cocktail: a boozy tribute to hometown dives, bathed in a glowing haze and good company. It’s townie bliss with a distant promise: that you’ll be able to see all your weirdos again too, one day.
Related Topics: 2020 Rewind
