I’m one of those people who hates getting to a movie late and missing the trailers.  You can read about an upcoming film and see promotional artwork and posters, but nothing can get you pumped for a new movie like seeing its trailer in the movie theaters.  Unfortunately, trailers can be misleading – as I am sure you know – and others seem to be simply a summary of the entire movie.  Like I discussed with Paul the other day, how much better would Terminator: Salvation have been if we didn’t know that Marcus was part machine until it was revealed in the movie?

For the most part, I guess, you can’t really judge a movie by its trailer.  A cool song or a montage of action shots, for example, may make the movie seem way better than it actually is.  I don’t think that a movie is great just because it wins an Academy Award for Best Picture (like Crash…ugh), but generally speaking, Best Picture winners are pretty good movies.  After the jump, take a look at the theatrical trailers for the last 10 Best Picture winners, and see if the trailer did the movie justice or, to the contrary, made you think the movie was going to be totally different than what it actually was.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008 – Danny Boyle)

No Country for Old Men (2007 – The Coen Brothers)

The Departed (2006 – Martin Scorsese)

Crash (2005 – Paul Haggis)

Million Dollar Baby (2004 – Clint Eastwood)

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003 – Peter Jackson)

Chicago (2002 – Rob Marshall)

A Beautiful Mind (2001 – Ron Howard)

Gladiator (2000 – Ridley Scott)

American Beauty (1999 – Sam Mendes)