trailer

Surprise! 20th Century Fox has delivered the first full trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence (not related to Toho’s Godzilla: Resurgence, unfortunately) a wee bit earlier than previously planned. The trailer was going to debut in front of Star Wars: The Force Awakens later this week, but early Christmas has come early, and our ol’ alien pals are back.

Trailers are a huge part of the fabric of movies. They play before every film shown in theaters, and on every movie website around the world. They’re commercials, obviously, but they’re also more than that; miniature works of art that utilize the core elements of cinema—image, sound, music, action, editing—at their most pure and refined. And today at ScreenCrush we’re celebrating movie trailers by saluting the best sneak previews of 2014.