There’s an art to making a great movie trailer. Sometimes the studio knows exactly what it’s selling, and just dials in on the best aspects of the film. Other times the studio is trying to reach a broad audience with a niche property, and thus crafts a trailer aimed at appealing to a wider demographic. There’s a fine line between selling and misleading, and audiences don’t respond too kindly when they’re promised one thing in a trailer and get something completely different in the finished movie (see: Drive).

But sometimes trailers are so good, the quality of the actual films don’t live up to the hype. That’s the focus of this here feature, in which we’re taking a look at some absolutely great trailers made for movies that fell quite short of expectations. Not all of these movies are “bad” necessarily, but their trailers—for one reason or another—ended up being more exciting than the actual films themselves.

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

We begin with the obvious. Fans flocked to theaters and bought tickets to movies they had no intention of watching just to see the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace teaser trailer on the big screen. This was the first new Star Wars movie in over a decade, and the long-promised prequel that would chronicle the origin story of Darth Vader. We basked in the gloriousness of the trailer, unaware of the disappointment that would soon follow. Ignorance is bliss, truly.

Aloha

Filmmaker Cameron Crowe’s Aloha was swiftly dismissed and got wrapped up in controversy over the race of Emma Stone’s character, but the first trailer for this romantic dramedy remains a stellar piece of work in and of itself. The use of Cold War Kids does some heavy lifting, but there’s so much emotion here it almost makes you well up. The finished film is an odd duck—a shapeless, plot-less mess of sorts, but with intriguing characters and some great standalone scenes. It’s frustrating because we know how good Crowe can be when he’s on, and this Aloha trailer still gives hope that there’s a good movie buried in the mishmash of ideas somewhere.

Prometheus

First of all I’ll say I don’t think Prometheus is a bad movie, but I acknowledge that quite a few do. I think we can all agree that the trailer for the film is fantastic, and it promised not only Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to sci-fi, but also a terrifying riff on horror as well. The final film isn’t as scary as this trailer would lead you to believe, but hoo boy the editing and sound design in this piece of marketing still sends chills down my spine.

Sucker Punch

Honestly you could put pretty much any Zack Snyder film on this list. The guy is a tremendous visual stylist, but when it comes to storytelling he has some issues. In that respect, it appears to be pretty easy to cut a great trailer out of a Zack Snyder movie, and that’s certainly the case with Sucker Punch. This extremely flawed film has some absolutely astounding imagery within it, and if you don’t want to experience the slog of having to actually sit through the movie, watching this trailer a few times is a great alternative.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Once upon a time, we were all excited about Peter Jackson returning to direct The Hobbit. Ah, innocence. Anticipation for The Hobbit began to lessen when we learned the adaptation was being stretched from the initial two films to three, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey managed to pull off something we thought was impossible: Make us not want to return to Middle-earth anymore. But that first trailer was gloriously effective for Lord of the Rings heads eager to spend more time in that world, and even though Jackson kind of George Lucas’d it with his prequel trilogy, this trailer still remains a great piece of marketing.

Suicide Squad

Maybe the best trailer on this whole list. Comparing the Comic-Con sizzle reel of Suicide Squad to the film’s official trailer are night and day as they almost look like different movies entirely—and perhaps they were. Warner Bros. famously opted to alter the tone of the film in post-production after fans went nuts for the “Bohemian Rhapsody”-tracked trailer, while the Comic-Con sizzle reel was put together during production, when it was more of a gritty and hardened film. That official trailer remains one of the best pieces of marketing in recent memory, even if the finished film itself is a bit of an unfocused mess.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I’d hesitate to call any David Fincher film “bad”—even Alien 3, for which footage was shot without his involvement, has its moments—but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one of his most disappointing efforts upon release. Fincher was coming off the masterful The Social Network, and Sony teased Dragon Tattoo as “The Feel-Bad Movie of Christmas” to jaw-dropping results. Backed by a Karen O cover of “Immigrant Song,” this trailer showcases lots of footage from the meticulously photographed film, and it all just feels so cool. While the movie improves on subsequent viewings, it never matched the high of seeing that trailer in theaters.

Pearl Harbor

It’s hard to explain just how big of a deal this trailer was. Back in 2001, Michael Bay was still a bit of an odd choice to direct Pearl Harbor—especially having just come off the silly Armageddon—but it felt like we were maybe about to witness the action director go dramatic in an exciting way. This was the era of Braveheart, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan, and audiences were primed for another great historical epic. This trailer still evokes chills with stunning imagery of bravery backed by FDR’s iconic speech, but once we saw that film we realized it was basically just a Titanic ripoff with none of James Cameron’s (relative) nuance. But this trailer is so good it almost makes me want to give Pearl Harbor another shot. Almost.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The trailer for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a great example of how trailers in and of themselves can create Oscar buzz. Considering the December release date, the high concept, and the pure emotion of this trailer, many prognosticators rocketed the film onto their lists of Oscar hopefuls. Of course director Ben Stiller’s finished film fell far short of expectations, but just the mere fact that this trailer elicited Oscar buzz speaks to its effectiveness.

The Dark Knight Rises

Again this isn’t necessarily a “bad” movie, but The Dark Knight Rises falls short of the character and thematic heights of Christopher Nolan’s first two films. The first teaser for Dark Knight Rises, however, played with the idea of ending the trilogy beautifully, framing the entire teaser around a conversation between a hospital bed-ridden Gordon and Batman himself, alluding to their deal at the end of The Dark Knight and explaining why Batman must come back. It’s thrill-inducing and chill-inducing in equal measure, from the quick shots of Bane to the emotionally charged performance from Gary Oldman. If only we could’ve gotten the great conclusion we deserved.