30 Movies That Proved That You Shouldn't Judge A Film By Its Trailer

When we're deciding what movie we want to watch, the official trailer influences our decision three times more than any other factor.

Jesse

• Published in Interesting
• March 21, 2023

What a way to surprise the audience! There are millions of movies out there. Each year, Hollywood alone makes hundreds of movies. 

Research shows that since 1900, the world has produced an average of 2,577 films yearly. This means that there are tons of options for consumers to choose from. 

When deciding which movies to watch, there are several things a person looks out for typically. They include the movie poster, its cast, and of course, a trailer that promises the best possible time.

Trailers are usually the one thing producers cannot afford to get wrong because, usually, a lousy trailer means a lower chance of getting viewership to increase. 

Movie companies have since invested in producing attention-grabbing trailers that can hook a viewer’s interest, even while giving them adequate information.

Unfortunately, it’s not always best to judge how good a movie will be by watching a trailer alone.

One Redditor was determined to expose movie trailers that sell a different truth from what the original movies are. Hence, they asked on the subreddit r/movies for people to name the films that they thought turned out to be completely different from their trailers.

Redditors sure had a lot of examples to share. Check some of them out below!

1. Galaxy Quest

*Galaxy Quest* the trailer promoted it as a kids movie basically but in reality it’s the best Star Trek movie ever made

2. Downsizing

A modern comedy take on Honey I Shrunk the Kids? No. A confusing climate change apocalypse movie.

3. Bridge to Terabithia

The trailers implied that it was going to be a whimsical chuldrens fantasy similar to Narnia. In reality it was a coming of age tale dealing with sudden death and loss

I read the book when I was a kid, so I was thrown off when I first saw the trailer. I thought they took Terabithia literally and made a movie about it. I am glad that I was wrong, as the movie is basically a shot for shot adaptation of the book, just set in the mid 2000s instead of the 70s

4. Thelma & Louise

I’ll answer this for my late mother, who I went to see Thelma & Louise with because she thought it was a wacky female road trip adventure comedy from the commercials. Wrong.

5. Stranger Than Fiction

The trailer included all of the comedy scenes from the movie and made it seem like it was a wacky story because it starred Will Ferrell. The movie is actually quite serious for the premise and Will Ferrell delivered a wonderful dramatic performance.

6. Click

Thought it was another Adam Sandler goofball comedy where he could control time…bawled my eyes out the last 20 minutes.

7. Hancock

Isn’t a drunk superhero like it seems in the trailer he is a drunk Angel. It’s weird.

8. Slumdog Millionaire

Not trailer but I remember the bus advertising for Slumdog Millionaire in the uk tagged it as “the feel good movie of the year”. Yeah that’s a no.

9. Fight Club

Fight Club comes to mind. Obviously they wouldn’t give away the twist but the trailer made it look like just a bunch of guys who organized bar fights.

10. Jarhead

How has nobody mentioned *Jarhead*?

The trailers made it out to be a Gulf War-era testosterone laced action romp. This was insane given the minimal amount of action shown in any of the trailers.

In reality, what we got was a deep character study on the futility and "shut up and wait" aspect of war. To be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, especially during subsequent viewings once my expectations were fully tempered.

Similar things can be said about *Three Kings*, although trailers for that film leaned more into the comedy aspects of the film.

11. The Village

The trailer made it seem like a super natural creature flick. Turned out to be a period romance/ drama.

Once I got over not getting the movie in the trailer, I grew to love it. I think it’s one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever watched.

12. Ad Astra

Ad Astra looked like an exciting Sci fi movie, instead it was a boring Sci fi movie

13. Godzilla (2014)

The trailer for Godzilla (2014) was about 50% Bryan Cranston, who was super-popular after Breaking Bad. You'd think he was actually the protagonist, but if you watch the movie, he's only got a few scenes.

14. Nope

‘Nope’ - in a good way as it allows you to make some assumptions about the visual cues but whips several of them away when watching the movie.

15. Chasing Amy

16. Donnie Darko’s

Donnie Darko’s trailer looked like a horror movie.

17. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

They made it look like a really cool rootin' tootin' cowboy shootin' adventure, when in reality it was a very slow-paced drama, and a character study on depression, paranoia, and obsession.

Turns out, that was just fine by me. It's one of my all time favorite movies, and I'd even go so far as to say it's a *perfect* movie.

Everything about it is just flawless, imo.

The casting, writing, acting, cinematography, the score (omg, the score...), it's just absolutely beautifully done.

18. Snow Dogs

This is a prominent one from my childhood because it was a huge bait n switch: Snow Dogs.

The main trailer showed a bunch of talking huskies on a beach making fun of their musher (Played by Cuba Gooding Jr). To me (and my mom) it seemed like an amusing movie with talking dogs who clearly get up to hijinks.

Instead, Snow Dogs, while humorous, was about a Florida dentist's journey in discovering he'd been adopted after inheriting a team of sled dogs from a woman in Alaska. He travels to the small village of Tolketna to sort out the affair and learns about his mother, the previous owner of the dogs, and ends up falling in love with Alaska, the dogs, and the friendly local bartender.

Little me didn't actually really get the story all that well, but adult me appreciates it for what it is. I've got a fondness for it, even if it's a mediocre movie, because a) hits close to home: my mom was adopted too; b) it was filmed in Canada close to where I now live; and c) one of the main dogs was a border collie, and my best friend growing up was a border collie.

19. It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night is the first film that comes to mind. It was marketed as a post apocalyptic horror thriller, but it’s actually a claustrophobic character study about paranoia. Still a great film, but it got a lot of hate because the trailer made it look like a completely different film.

20. Antebellum

The trailer manipulated movie footage to create the illusion of supernatural or sci fi elements. There was nothing like that in the actual movie.

For example the little girl in the hotel hallway was manipulated to look like a ghost in the trailer. It was actually just a normal little girl. The glitching airplane flying over the cotton field in the trailer indicated time travel or parallel universes, but it was just a normal airplane in present day. There was no glitching in the movie. It was a deliberate deceptive tactic.

21. Maleficent

Maleficent-was expecting a dark retelling of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty because of the title character being the villain of Sleeping Beauty. Instead gets a movie that completely misses the point of this character and why people love Maleficent by making her the good fairy.

Now don’t get me wrong I understand the messages of the movie and its allegories referenced the original story (not Disney’s original, but the other one where Talia wakes up giving birth to her twins) but I would forgive it if Angelina morphed into Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent hated Aurora because she wanted her dead because her parents didn’t invite her. Her discovering her powers and becoming the mistress of all evil would be a much better movie than a revenge-redemption story.

22. The Happening

The Happening. Marketed as a horror/thriller, plot twist, it is a deadpan comedy hiding in plain sight.

23. Sucker Punch

This movie was not what I thought it would be however it had a deeper message than most people realize. It wasn't that long ago that girls and women were put into mental institutions simply to make life easier for the men who wanted them to go away. Sad.

24. Days of Summer

The trailer for 500 Days of Summer made it look much funnier and more light hearted

25. Drive & Adventureland

2 I can think of

Drive trailers made it out to be a car chase centric thrill ride. In reality, all car scenes were shown in their entirety in the trailers.

Adventureland trailers promised a screwball raunchy comedy. In reality, it was a very good coming of age drama.

26. The Grey

The Grey. The trailers made it seem like "Taken..... WITH WOLVES!!" Instead, bleak existential drama. Very strange experience.

27. About Time

About Time made it seem like it's entirely a pure *get the girl* rom-com

28. Happy Feet

29. Halloween Ends

There is so much cut content in the trailers...

30. Age of Ultron

Age of Ultron had the trailer like set in grim dark world with the heroes are getting shattered. The movies is all jokes and quips.

Many trailers promise what the movie cannot deliver, just so they can attract viewers. Sometimes, they paint the stories in a certain way, but the films tend to be entirely different. 

We've also seen instances where the trailers aren't so great, but the movies turn out to be awesome. We bet movie fans wouldn't mind that, tho.

Do you agree with these movie selections? Let us know in the comments below!

Jesse