The Best Movie Trailers Of 2014

Last month Chris posted his top 10 trailers of 2014, but I also wanted to weigh in with my favorite trailers of the past year. You might be surprised at which trailers did and didn't make the cut. For instance, one of the trailers below is for a movie which has yet to begin principal photography. And no, the top trailer on my list is not the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer. Find out the best movie trailers of 2014, ranked by me, after the jump.

15. Iron Sky: The Coming Race Teaser Trailer

I have to admit that the trailer for Iron Sky got me excited, but for some reason or another I have never actually seen the film. The concept looked so ridiculously fun and pulpy, with the Nazis setting up a secret base on the dark side of the moon in 1945 where they hide out and built a space fleet to return in 2018 and conquer Earth. The first promotional teaser trailer for the sequel, Iron Sky: The Coming Race, is also great.

Set twenty years after World War III, the survivors must fight against Adolf Hitler & his army of dinosaurs. Sure its partly shock value, but I just love the ridiculousness of it all.

14. Birdman Teaser Trailer

I love that this teaser trailer opens on a single steadicam shot introduction of Michael Keaton's character. The only reason this teaser isn't higher on this list is that I feel it incorrectly tries to sell the film with the explosions, action and super powers of the superhero movie that the screenplay and character despises so much. But I love how they cut a slow-jam version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" to the more visually striking imagery from the film, not revealing much about the story itself. And in the end it doesn't take itself too seriously, instead concluding with Keaton's hilarious backstage brawl with Edward Norton's character.

13. Knight of Cups

I may not be as deeply in love with Terrence Malick as many as my fellow film geeks, but I can appreciate his work — especially when presented in a short digestable trailer. I love the rhythm of this trailer edit, packed with beautiful images and an almost poetic presentation, offering us glimpses of the film but not revealing too much. This is something you will find with many of the teaser trailers on this list.

12. Guardians Of The Galaxy Second Trailer

This might not be as surprising as the original teaser trailer which premiered at Comic Con in 2013, but its a fantastically edited introduction to the insane craziness of Marvel's galactic heroes. And of course, selling the film with its retro pop score headlined by "Hooked on a Feeling" was a brilliant choice.

11. The Grand Budapest Hotel First Trailer

The great thing about this trailer is how many laughs it packs in under two and a half minutes. Yet it still maintains Anderson's comic pacing, taking moments to sit on a wide shot in silence in between parts of the fast-cut montage.

10. Nightcrawler Teaser

Jake Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom dialogue seems to fit this trailer's narration perfectly, and the climax of this trailer is so unsettling and great.

9. Tomorrowland Teaser

The teaser trailer for Brad Bird's Tomorrowland gives us the premise and leaves us with the perfect amount of a tease. (A man with a jetpack flying in a future world!) If I have one complaint about this teaser trailer it is that it might not show enough. But we'll see more in due time, so I think thats okay. I have noticed that this teaser doesn't play as well when I've seen it on the big screen with a packed theater.

8. Under the Skin

I didn't love this film, but I enjoyed it. I love the style of this teaser, and its incorporation of the film's amazing hypnotic score over the movie's wicked visuals.

7. Godzilla Trailer

Perhaps not as cool as the Comic Con teaser or the Halo jump teaser trailer (both of which were released before 2014), but the first full trailer for Godzilla showcases destruction with Bryan Cranston's intense voiceover conspiracy theory rant about the end of the world as we know it. We then go into a slow build, a very tense thrilling reveal of the big green monster — without showing to much.

6. Inherent Vice

The official trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Inherent Vice is filled with a Coen Brothers-like comic energy. The snippets of plot are so weirdly compelling, and I just love the big neon sign-esque title cards.

5. Gone Girl

David Fincher's movies almost always have amazing trailers. The big-screen adaptation of Gone Girl is promoted here in an almost wordless montage set to a cover of "She" by the Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler. It hides the film's deepest twists without sacrificing anything. The end is brilliant, with a shot of Amy floating dead in the water with Ben Affleck's voice over promising that he did not kill his wife.

4. American Sniper

The trailer for Clint Eastwood's American Sniper uses the tension of one single enticing scene intercut with a montage of escalating shots. Should he pull the trigger? Will you go see the movie?

3. Interstellar

All of the marketing for Interstellar was fantastic, from the initial 2013 "one year from now" teaser trailer which was edited around clips of the space race and featured almost no footage from the film itself to even the later trailers which showed more and more. You can tell Christopher Nolan had a lot of creative control with the marketing and these trailers because many of the films secrets are so well protected. I love how this trailer intercuts the intimate moments of Coop deciding to take the mission with the countdown to lift off. It showcases the wonders of Nolan's galactic imagery but keeps it grounded in character and emotion.

2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It has already become the most watched trailer of all time. There is no trailer on this list that I have watched more times than the 88-second Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer. From John Williams' new Sarlacc pit sequence-inspired score to the first moving images from the most anticipated movie of all time. And like any great teaser, it promises us so much but cleverly shows us so little.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road Teaser Trailer

Its not that I wasn't looking forward to Mad Max: Fury Road, but I don't think anyone was expecting the teaser trailer to out-buzz Warner Bros' other big tentpole films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies when it premiered at San Diego Comic Con this year. Not only was the entirety of Hall H left in shock, but Warner Bros quickly released the teaser online and it quickly became the highest-trending thing of the con. This is the type of teaser trailer that puts a film on the map and launches it into the most anticipated list of most film geeks.

I'm including both the Comic Con teaser trailer and the first official teaser trailer because both are awesome in their own ways.

Feedback: Which trailers released in 2014 did I miss? Which were your favorites?