The official trailer for Skyfall arrived in 2012, marketing the Bond franchise's fiftieth anniversary film and what many consider the peak of the entire series. Sam Mendes's direction brought a cinematic ambition and emotional depth to the franchise that it had never previously achieved, and the trailer signals that quality with a restraint and confidence that immediately marks something rare.
First Impressions
The trailer is immediately the most cinematically assured in Bond history, Roger Deakins's photography giving every frame a visual quality that transcends the action genre entirely. Craig's Bond is at his most vulnerable and most compelling, and the film's exploration of mortality, loyalty, and institutional identity gives the footage a psychological depth no previous Bond trailer had approached.
What the Trailer Reveals
The trailer establishes Bond's apparent death and resurrection, his mission to protect M from a threat rooted in her own past, and the film's central confrontation with Javier Bardem's Silva. Bardem's villain is glimpsed as one of cinema's most unsettling antagonists, Judi Dench's M is positioned as the film's emotional centre, and the Scottish Highlands climax hints at a finale of unusual intimacy and emotional power.
Music and Sound
Adele's title song is one of the greatest Bond themes ever recorded: a vocal performance of striking power and emotional range that captures the film's themes of survival, identity, and return with real force. Thomas Newman's score is among the most distinctive in the franchise's history, and the overall sonic palette reflects a production operating at the peak of its creative powers.
Most Memorable Moment
The Shanghai skyscraper assassination sequence, silhouetted figures against a neon-lit glass facade, is the trailer's most visually stunning moment: a sequence of such cinematic beauty that it conveys the film's visual ambitions in a single image. It is the moment the trailer most effectively demonstrates that Skyfall operates at a different level from any previous Bond film.
Trailer Verdict
This is the Bond trailer against which all others are measured. Deakins's photography, Mendes's control, Craig at his most compelling, and Adele's song playing over all of it: the combination is close to perfect. Skyfall is the franchise at its absolute ceiling, and this trailer knew it before anyone had seen a frame of the film.