AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-third category of the 10th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great (in this case, they mostly were), the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below.

The winner:

Moonlight


Other nominees:

20th Century Women


The Lobster


Sully


Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-sixth category of the 8th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great (in this case, they mostly were), the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:

The Theory of Everything  

Other nominees:

Birdman  

Inherent Vice  
The Grand Budapest Hotel  
Interstellar  

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-fifth category of the 7th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:

Inside Llewyn Davis

Other nominees:

The Wolf of Wall Street

Her

The Great Gatsby

The Counselor

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-fifth category of the 6th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below.

The winner:

Les Miserables

Other nominees:

Zero Dark Thirty

Prometheus

The Avengers

Ruby Sparks

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-eighth category of the 5th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below.

The winner:

Take Shelter


Other nominees:

The Tree of Life


Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy


The Artist


The Adjustment Bureau

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-seventh category of the 4th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below.

The winner:



Other nominees:

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-seventh category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below. Read more about A Single Man, A Serious Man, Nine, The Men Who Stare At Goats, and The Lovely Bones.

The winner:



Other nominees:

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-second category of the 1st Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order by film title. Winners will be announced in late February.

The films themselves may have been a letdown, but this category recognizes the quality of the trailers. The trailers referred to are usually specific, especially in the case of “Atonement” and “I Am Legend”, which had brilliant later versions of the trailers which were simply stunning. Watch out for minor spoilers, especially in the write-up for “Atonement”.

Runners-up:
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
FIRST SNOW
SUPERBAD
JUNO
THE KINGDOM

The nominees:
AMERICAN GANGSTER Watch Trailer
From its first appearance around the same time as the trailer for “We Own the Night”, it seemed clear that this film would be this year’s “The Departed”. A loud, thrashing score fueled the energy of both Denzel Washington’s mobster and Russell Crowe’s dogged investigator. The two appeared to be a perfect match, perfectly paralleling each other in a story where it might not be clear who was the hero and who was the villain. Terrific editing wrapped this film up like a pre-holiday present.

ATONEMENT Watch Trailer
It opens with the sound of typewriter keys and dazzling shots of Keira Knightley and James McAvoy sauntering and sweating in the heat. This version of the trailer in particular gives away little of the plot, summing up the film’s early half in a mere thirty seconds or so. After that, there is very little dialogue, save for Briony’s apology, and the film’s beautiful score is utilized so effectively and paired with both beautiful and chilling shots, culminating in that haunting scene of Knightley looking up as water floods in. A trailer that captures the best elements of the film and is even better to watch after seeing the movie.

I AM LEGEND Watch Trailer
This is an evenly split trailer which spends its first half explaining what happened (“I’m not infected! I’m not infected!) without giving away too much, and showing Will Smith walking around the desolate, deserted New York City. Pure imagery and a word or two here and there does the trick. It is the trailer’s second half that really gets the blood flowing. A frightening declaration of “Night” sends the film into a montage of action scenes accompanied by remixed music from “The Fountain”. A ten-second sequence of Smith running from the infected zombies starts it off, and right before the title shows up, a whole lot of those things swarm out of the fountain in Washington Square Park. This is going to be one hell of a ride.

THE SAVAGES Watch Trailer
The interplay of colors and alert levels is charming, and the seemingly aloof attitudes of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney contrast perfectly. Music originally used effectively in the “Stranger than Fiction” trailer works just as well here, previewing what looks like a dramedy with a sharply comedic edge. A great trailer which picks out the only funny moments in a deeply dramatic film.

WAITRESS Watch Trailer
It is hard to go wrong with pie and the half-smile Keri Russell carries around on her face. What is especially great about this trailer is that it creates its own individualistic style, which exists also in the film but becomes readily apparent in only two minutes here. Russell’s amusing “Flambé, of course” in response to her smartly-named delicacies complete the comedy of this amusing and heartwarming preview.