One of the most unique categories we include each year is the celebration of film commercials. No, we are not talking about Regal's The Twenty. Instead, we seek to laud the best of the best movie marketing campaigns. One of the most common complaints of consumers is that they were misled by a great trailer, thereby tricked into watching a lousy flick. When this happens, the marketing team has done their job...even if it does make you hate their guts and swear that they will rue the day they did this to you. The Calvin for Best Trailer celebrates this shameless advertising duplicity.

And the winner is...Jarhead. Almost as noteworthy is the fact that it won by 50% over the second place finisher. Jarhead was selected on almost 80% of the ballots and only one of them placed it outside the top four. The site was unanimous in our positivity toward this trailer, a rare trait for our collection of contrarians.

What is it about this trailer that allowed it to strike such a chord with the voters? If you are wondering this question, you obviously did not read the site much in 2005. The magic words are: "I thank God for every day in the corps. Hoo-ah." As the Kanye West musical accompaniment of Jesus walks punctuates every tense moment in the trailer, the hallmarks of war are placed on full display for viewers. So magnificent was its effect that Jarhead's opening managed to stand out against a number of recent war genre box office disappointments (does anyone even remember The Great Raid?).

The fact that the movie did not live up to the hype created by the ad campaign is that much more justification for its selection as the best of the year. The movie itself did not strike a chord with viewers, leading to a shocking decline after a $27 million opening. The combination of West's single with a disillusioned Jake Gyllenhaal and an enigmatic Jamie Foxx, on the other hand, will be remembered for years to come.

Finishing in second place is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In a category known for divisiveness, it is the only selection that garnered multiple first place votes. The striking visual of the youthful explorers crossing a bridge of ice is the most memorable shot in this commercial. The directorial decision to have a little girl bite her lip before she unveiled the wardrobe itself is what lingered in our memory the longest, though.

Many would argue that this first adaptation of C.S. Lewis's lasting contribution to fantasy literature was predestined to succeed. The degree to which it manhandled King Kong speaks volumes about the quality of the trailer, though. The Chronicles of Narnia was an unknown box office commodity, yet it not only unseated Peter Jackson at the box office, but also stands within $5 million of the cinematic adaptation of the best book in the Harry Potter series...and it's not done yet. This says a lot about how great the marketing campaign was.

"Do you want to run this ship?"
"Yes."
"Uh, well...you can't."

Third generation screenwriter Joss Whedon sees the creative process in a different way from the rest of the world. While normal artists try to write a scene where the heroes work together and save the day, Whedon is always attempting to figure out how to make them win in spite of themselves. Selling this premise as a television program proved beyond the abilities of the supremely talented network executives at FOX.

So, the folks at Paramount who were assigned the task of selling an unproven television commodity to cinema buffs faced an extraordinary challenge. Given a time constraint of sixty seconds, they had to grow a brand that had been inexplicably ignored while on television. To their credit, they pulled it off impeccably. Rather than pretend that they were marketing a big budget special effects film, a decision was made to advertise the Wit of Whedon. Wow, what a concept.

The film did not make as much as its most diehard fans, the self-anointed Browncoats, would have hoped. It did, however earn a respectable amount of money in theaters, then sold extraordinarily well on DVD, an indication that the trailers successfully introduced a new legion of Whedon-ites to the genius of the Firefly world. That's more than good enough for third place in our eyes.

Pulse-pounding music combined with sublime comic book scenery earns Sin City a fourth place finish. The Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez joint production features some of slickest visuals of any 2005 release, so the marketing department had an easy task in theory. All they had to was cut a spot which highlighted the world of Sin City without doing anything to take attention away from its singularly unique look. That sounds simple enough in theory but anyone who remembers the 1998 release, Pleasantville will confirm that it's easier said than done. Trusting the product to sell itself requires a patience and a level of belief that few possess. We applaud the makers of the Sin City trailer for their restraint.

Rounding out the top five is King Kong. Peter Jackson's latest three hours opus faced the same dilemma we saw with 1998's Godzilla and 2003's The Hulk. It was a mega-anticipated update of a well-known character, and its director was coming off a hugely successful project. Whereas Roland Emmerich lost any momentum he had from Independence Day and Ang Lee went from Shakespearean wu xia to smaller films with gay cowboys, Jackson kept his winning streak. How did he succeed where they had failed? His marketing team understood that the film was much more than an ape with bi-planes for mortal enemies. They sold the old school Hollywood storyline and emphasized the Jurassic Park moments in the trailer. You can't argue with $215 million worth of domestic results.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the staff at BOP likes Nathan Fillion. A certain militant faction of our writers has even threatened violence if we don't become a Fillion fan site at some point in the near future. A couple of us have even gone to the extreme length of watching Two Girls and a Guy re-runs to see more of him. That's hard core right there. Now then, combine this knowledge with the past examples wherein BOP has shown a love of Animals Eating People films. So, it should be unsurprising that Fillion's slug-buster flick duplicates this feat in the 2006 awards. Here's hoping Slither is every bit as good as Eight-Legged Freaks.

Demonstrating that we are nothing if not creatures of habit at BOP, we see a repeat performance in seventh place. Last year, we lauded Pixar for their advertising campaign for The Incredibles. This year, we find ourselves surprised to say that Cars has come on enough in recent spots to equal this seventh place selection. The teaser was rightfully attacked by mainstream audiences for being average-looking, particularly by Pixar's lofty standards, but the extended trailer rocks. The mimicry of a real car commercial works perfectly. It demonstrates exactly how realistic the renderings of Pixar's animation geniuses have become. An update of the ad shown during the Super Bowl initially confused innumerable viewers but once they were let in on the joke, it proved to be one of the most popular of the day. The moral of the story is that Pixar should always get the benefit of the doubt.

Our eighth place selection, V for Vendetta, is eerily similar to Cars. Initial opinions about the teaser were *ahem* mixed. When the movie's release was pushed back to 2006, many consumers were convinced it was a disaster waiting to happen. Then, the trailer was shown. The haunting words were offered. "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." From that moment on, the tide turned and rightfully so. This exploration into anarchy is one of the few Must Watch titles of the pre-summer 2006 schedule.

Finishing in ninth and tenth place are Millions and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Our last two selections have a couple of commonalities. Both feature a boy in the lead role and both offer a child's purity of perspective on how to handle ethical challenges. Millions tells the story of a boy who finds himself made wealthy due to the bungling of train robbers. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is more faithful adaptation of the storied movie treasure, Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Both trailers wisely emphasize that we are born with a strong moral compass. It's only as we mature that our certainty in its accuracy erodes.

Narrowly missing the top ten are Marie Antoinette, MirrorMask, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, War of the Worlds, Wedding Crashers and Chicken Little. (David Mumpower/BOP)

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