Contagion (2011)
The Spoilers: 𓃲As a doctor helpfully tells Matt Damon - twice! - "your wife is dead." So Gwyneth is the monkey, then.
How They Should've Sold It: You'd think in a film with so many stars they'd be able to draw attention away from Gwyneth's fate. Why giv൩e the bit-par💫t doctor any trailer time at all?
Free Willy (1993)
The Spoilers: "If we don't get him into water soon, he's gonna d⛦ie!" How about we get him into the ocean before the 🐷trailer ends?
How They Should've Sold It: End the trail🍃er on the possibility that Willy might die… although that would risk replacing the family audience with a nic♉he demographic of whale-haters.
Carrie (1976)
The Spoilers: 🍨Voiceover guy tells the entire story, even down to explaining that "she'll be voted Queen of the Prom" - cut to splattering pig's blood and split-screen carnage.
How They Should've Sold It: Play up the mystery as to what's🌼 different about Carrie. Which means dropping the shot ༺where she looks up 'telekinesis' in the dictionary.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The Spoilers: Who's this White Wizard that everybody's so interested in? Oh, it's Gandalf. Yes, that Gandalf. The one we ꧅thought had died in the last ❀movie.
How They Should've Sold It: There💜's a whole hour's worth of battle footage they could have used without giving away too muc🃏h.
The Island (2005)
The Spoilers: Steve Buscemi blows the entire plot by tellingꦿ Ewan McGregor, "You're not real," you're copies of people out here in the world."
How They Should've Sold It: It's a Michael Bay film. Blow something up.
GoldenEye (1995)
The Spoilers: Sean Bean's the baddie. Which is great until you see the film and discoveꩲr he supposedly 'dies' in the pre-credit sequence.
How They Should've Sold It: It was t𒁏he first 007 film in six years. Just play t🅺he theme, show some action, end on a quip. Leave the plot details alone.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
The Spoilers: Demi Moore's the baddie. Fair enough, un🐟til you see the film and realise that's supposed to be a twist.
How They Should've Sold It: Again, plot's not exactly top of the agenda for this film's target au�🍌�dience. Stick to the cleavage and kickboxing.
Double Jeopardy (1999)
The Spoilers: Ashley Judd is locked up for killing her hubby, but when she discovers he's still aliv🦹e, the plot is helpfully spelled out: "Ever hear of double jeopardy? That means when you leave here, you can kill him a💎nd there's nothing anybody can do about it."
How They Should've Sold It: It's not exactly the most challenging of plotlines to guess, but at 📖least stripping away the exposition would make us work a bit harder.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
The Spoilers: Who's the mystery man played 𝔉by Sam Worthington? Oh, he's a Terminator.
How They Should've Sold It: There's no real reason to show Worthington at all. Concentrate on the cybernetic action and C🥃hristian Bale's John Connor.
Arlington Road (1998)
The Spoilers: Is Jeff Bridges crazy, or is his new neighbour Tim Robbiဣns a terrorist? Watch the film to find out... or, you know, watch the t🉐railer.
How They Should've Sold It: Actually, this comes🔯 perilously close to giving away the ending, too, so maybe they'd have been best to caption Robbins' screen-time with "Yes, he is a terrorist" i🌜n order to bamboozle us.
Cast Away (2000)
The Spoilers: Reckon Tom Hanks gets off the isl꧅and? "You were lost for four years," his mate tells him. So, yeah, he probably makes it.
How They Should've Sold It: Remove any fo🍰otage from the film's final fifteen minutes. It isn't rocket science.
What Lies Beneath (2000)
The Spoilers: Michelle Pfeiffer investigates what she thinks is the ghost of a neighbour. ♛Lucky the trailer is here to explain that, really, it's the woman that hubby Harrison Ford had an affair with.
How They Should've Sold It: Robert Zemeckis sure didn't give a monkey's about spoilin🅷g his movies in💎 2000. Maybe he should've hired a more discreet trailer editor.
Funny People (2009)
The Spoilers: "♐We may have beaten this t🌠hing." Clearly, the prospect of Adam Sandler dying is too much to bear.
How They Should've Sold It: A ratio of one-quarter 'illness melodrama' to th𒊎ree-quarters chuckles. C'mon🃏, the Adam Sandler audience isn't that discriminating.
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
The Spoilers: Hol🤪y sไhit, the Enterprise has been destroyed! Now imagine how much more of a shock that would have been if they'd saved it until midway through the film.
How They Should've Sold It: Bizarrely, this trailer ignores the whole premise of the film, so some footage ofꦚ Kirk and co. searching for Spock 𝓰would be nice.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
The Spoilers: A bit of a subtle one, but the shot of Orlando Bloom at the helm of the Flying 🐠Dutchman with a massive sword wound on🌱 his chest is there to see.
How They Should've Sold It: Be honest, people are only interested in Johnny Depp as Jack Sparr🔯ow. Orlando doesn't need🐼 a hero shot.
Dream House (2011)
The Spoilers: OK, so the clue's in the title, but does the trailer have to spell it out so clea🙈rly that Daniel Craig's life with Rachel Weisz isn't real?
How They Should've Sold It: By playing down the story's shifting realities and marketin👍g it as a straight-down-the-line haunted house chiller.
The Negotiator (1998)
The Spoilers: Jackson vs Spacey? Hell yeah... Until Spacey says, "Now you're gonna have to deal with both of us," and reveals they end up wo🌺rking together.
How They Should've Sold It: Simple. Jackson vs Spacey.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
The Spoilers: Ooh, thܫat's a cool looking crime thriller. Oh, hang on, it's a cool looking vampire thriller.
How They Should've Sold It: Use the trailer to tease the mid-film genre rug-pull, so that everybody thinks they'rღe watching a cool looking crime thriller until the dying seconds of the trailer.
Rope (1948)
The Spoilers: A typically sly Hitchcock trailer with specially shot materi🐲al gives away to a spoilerific recap of the film's last act.
How They Should've Sold It: Do the whole trailer straight-to-♛camera and dispense with any footage from the film.
The Last House On The Left (2009)
The Spoilers: The entire film, right down to how chief villain Garret Dillahunt is dispatched. Presumably, the makers fi💎gured audiences would pay simply for the rape and revenge.
How They Should've Sold It: End oಌn a🐼 cliffhanger as the parents discover who their new house guests are.
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007)
The Spoilers: Having established that t🧸hღe Fantastic Four can swap powers, the trailer proceeds to show the climax where the Human Torch has all of their powers.
How They Should've Sold It: Isn't it enough to have four 🐬superheroes fighting a silvery surf-dude from space?
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
The Spoilers: Everything, up to the big reveal that John Cusack's lat🌜est target is the dad of childhood sweetheart Minnie D𒉰river.
How They Should've Sold It: This one's just baffling. It virtually ignores the film's impressive second act set-pieces in its rush to ruin the climax. Perh🐠aps, just maybe, the emphasis should be the other way around?
Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
The Spoilers: Time travelleᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚr Clark Duke sees his young-again m🌟om. Mate Rob Corddry pulls her. She lies in bed, saying "I feel pregnant." Join the dots.
How They Should've Sold It: By removing at least two of the dots. There൲'s more than enou🧸gh crowd-pleasing 1980s nostalgia to entertain us without going all timey-wimey.
The Sum Of All Fears (2002)
The Spoilers: "They're building a bomb." Fair enough. The👍 bomb goes off? Bang goesඣ the film's tension.
How They Should've Sold It: End on a countdown. The audience will assume Ben Affleck stops the bomb and will therefore be alm🐽ightily shocked when they see the film.
Children Of Men (2006)
The Spoilers: In a ♊world without hope, where women can no longer have babies... that pregnant belly is one helluva spoiler.
How They Should've Sold It: Arguably, this is a case where one spoiler is sacrificed to protect another (sssh!) but the ꩵway Cuaron shoots action means there's plenty of other footage that could have❀ been used.
Death Proof (2007)
The Spoilers: True to the spi♏rit of the grindhouse classics, Quentin Tarantino's car-smash homage simply plays the film out sequence-by-sequence.
How They Should've Sold It: Try chopping up the order of events. It worked for Pulp Fiction .
Spider-man 3 (2007)
The Spoilers: So many subplots ♏and 🧜villains to choose from... so why not throw them all into the mix?
How They Should've Sold It: It's actually a fairly accurate depiction of the bloated finaဣl product, so maybe this is a case where the film needed streamlining first.
Final Destination 5 (2011)
The Spoilers: Continuing a franchise tradition, th🍒i꧅s gives away every death, give or take.
How They Should've Sold It: Five films, and millions of dollars later, we suspect nobody cares𝕴.
Chinatown (1974)
The Spoilers: Another sprawling 1970s trailer that feels no compunction about showing chunks of the final scene, right down to "Forg꧑et it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
How They Should've Sold It: By steering clear of theꦫ final act in favour of more hats, cars, fights and Jack Nichol𓃲son in his prime.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
The Spoilers: The trailer's entire second half shows the Hulk's climactic showdown with ♛Abomination. And don't get us s🅠tarted on later edits that show the post-credits cameo by Tony Stark.
How They Should've Sold It: An alternative cut gets it bang on by emphasising Edwar💞d Norton's flight from the authorities and only hinting at Tim Roth's transformation.
Twilight: New Moon (2009)
The Spoilers: The Rea🎉der's Digest version. It shows so much it spares any need to actually 🍸watch the film.
How They Should've Sold It: By remembering that a trailer implies leaving a trail to follow, in♏stead of presenting▨ the whole plot on a Sat Nav.
When A Stranger Calls (2006)
The Spoilers: There's a stranger trying to break in! Oh, hang on: "We've traced the call, it's coming from inside♍ the house."
How They Should've Sold It: There's a stranger trying to break in!🌟 Just that.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Spoilers: Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon is 🦩seen ushering the Joker into a prison cell and smashing the Batsignal. Both of which events happen after his supposed death in the film.
How They Should've Sold It: We love Gary Oldman, but it's fair to say there's a decent excuse here to downp💦lay his involvement. With Bale, Ledger, Caine, Freeman and the rest involved, it's not as if there's a shortage of star power.
Total Recall (1990)
The Spoilers: Arnie's female disguise, his false memories, "C⭕onsider that a divorce!" Pretty much the whole thing bar the triple-breasted whore, then.
How They Should've Sold It: Ah, the eternal perils of trying to make a cerebral action-flick. Too much talk, ⭕and the Schwarzenegger fanbase🎃 bails. But cut to the chase, and it kinda gives the game away.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Spoilers: Presumably, the editors got so confused by Brad Pitt's reverse ageing that they figured it wo🔯uldn't matter if they sped through the whole plot.
How They Should've Sold It: Backwards. That'd really be messing.
Brothers (2009)
The Spoilers: Tobey Maguire went to war and died. So now bro Jake Gyllenhᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚaal can get it on with widow Natalie Portman. Except Tobey Maguire didn🅠't die.
How They Should've Sold It: 👍It's probably impossible to keep this 𓄧secret without making the film look really boring, but a bit of subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss.
Avatar (2009)
The Spoilers: "You're going♛ up agไainst gunships with bows and arrows!" No need for two hours of preamble, then.
How They Should've Sold It: Monsters, spaceships, giant smurfs.
Spartan (2004)
The Spoilers: It takes two minutes to figure out that William H. Macy is r🐈unning a sex slave business. The film takes about an hour and a half to r𝓰each that point.
How They Should've Sold It: With the emphasis on🎉 director David Mamet's trademark terse dialogue and knotty plotting. Presumably they figured that, without action, the fil🧔m would look a bit… well, spartan.
Home Alone (1990)
The Spoilers: Christmas came early, when this Jingle Bells💧-themed ad showed pretty much every trap that Macauley Culkin leaves for the robbers.
How They Should've Sold It: To be fair, this one's funny enough to forgive.
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (2007)
The Spoilers: Nic Cage goes on a treasure hunt across the world looking for the President'♎s big book of secrets. A quick glance at the trailer would have made its location obvious.
How They Should've Sold It: With a few judicious trims, this one would be fine. It's as if Hollywood trailer editors can'💮t look at footage of a famous monument wꦜithout bunging it in.
Catfish (2010)
The Spoilers: "Don't let anybody tell you what it is." Trouble is, this๊ trailer gives away the twist that Nev Schulman's Facebook girlfriend might not be all she seems.
How They Should've Sold It: A tricky one. Catfish is one of those films where knowing anything is a disadvantage. At lea🔴st the trailer has the decency to stop be😼fore revealing who she really is.
Soylent Green (1973)
The Spoilers: "What is the secret of Soylent Green?" This three-and-a-half minute long trailer gives you long enough to work it out if you don't alread𝕴y know.
How They Should've Sold It: The first rule of any film with a twist - don't tell anyboﷺdy there'sꦅ a twist.
The Hangover (2009)
The Spoilers: Amongst many plot reveals, shꦬowing Mike Tyson's cameo is something that could easily have been kept under wraps.
How They Should've Sold It: Without Tyson, obviously.
Quarantine (2008)
The Spoilers: Notable for showing the last shot of the movie. Maybe the editor figured everybody had already seen the Spanish original, REC .
How They Should've Sold It: To be honest, given it's the image they used across all of the marketing, it wouldn't make much difference had they remov🐻ed it.
Enough (2002)
The Spoilers: "The cops can't hel🉐p you..." so abused wife J. Lo buffs up in order to take on her husbaꦛnd. Which is the film's last act.
How They Should've Sold It: Sometimes, a narrative is so misbegotten that there's no way𓆏 around spoilers. Let's face it, without showing J. Lo's revenge, this would be just be a film in which she keeps running aw𓆏ay from her fella.
The Kite Runner (2007)
The Spoilers: The film 🌞is about a childhood friendship torn apart by war. The trailer skips s🉐traight to the film's second half by telling us that one of the boys, Hassan, dies.
How They Should've Sold It: A little sleight-of-hand would ensure that a) the footage of Am♌ir returning to Afghanistan could be used without being specific about why, and b) th🌞e trailer is less of a downer.
Man Of The Year (2006)
The Spoilers: Late-night comedy host Robin Williams stands for President and shakes things up. A💟nd then he wins.
How They Should've Sold It: Winning isn't everything. The comedy value of a Bulworth-༒style "tell it like it is💯" satire should be enough to hook people without giving away the mid-film twist.
Hancock (2008)
The Spoilers: "I'm the only one of my kind," reckons superhero Will Smith. Look closely, though, and you'll realise th🅰at's not strictly true.
How They Should've Sold It: Technically, this is ruined only for the most eagle-eyed trailer spotters. Still, it's a failure of nerve for a supposed comedy to default to action mode, e♚specially when the teaser trailers n🔯ailed the laughs.
Cocoon (1985)
The Spoilers: It's probably inevitable that the trailer would reveal that th🃏e old folks are rejuvenated by alien lifeforce, but giving away that Brian Dennehy is an alien is a bit much.
How They Should've Sold It: It's Brian Dennehy! For some of us, that's enough. No need to waste time in 💙post-produ🉐ction adding an extra-terrestrial gleam in his eye.
Muppets From Space (1999)
The Spoilers: "They all had their place in this world, except for Gonzo." Good job this tra♋iler is on hand to pre-empt the film's big reveal of the Great one's fa♑mily.
How They Should've Sold It: For fear of repeating ourselves… A﷽void the final act. Bunchﷺ of Muppets.
