There's a terrific poster for Whiplash with Miles Teller on a drum kit in a spotlight, while the review quotes dwarf him from above in the majority of the poster's space. Whether intentional or not, I feel this is a fantastic means of portraying the film's point about the overwhelming nature of criticism and how it drives people to what they really want.
The original movie poster for "Alien" from 1979 will always be one of my favorite movie posters. The simplicity of that poster is breathtaking with the Egg in the middle and the looming green color underneath it... You don't know what to expect from the movie but you certainly expect something... special, mysterious and scary.
The Thing (1982). The image of the man in the snowsuit with the intangible beam of light coming from his face. It tells you just enough, without telling you anything.
Star Wars Ep I: The Phantom Menace teaser poster! The shadow of Darth Vader looming over a young Anakin. This poster contained more storytelling than any of the prequels.
The thing that draws me to movie posters for the slightly older movies is that many used traditional art. Not to discredit photography and photoshop as a medium - it's the one I work within myself, but there's something I can't get away from for a good, hand-crafted poster. Want to bring new film posters the quality and warmth of some of the older ones? Convince Drew Struzan to come out of retirement.
There are tons of great modern movie posters Mark but most are not made by the studio. They're made by fans online. Just go on pinterest and you'll see hundreds of amazing posters. Also special shoutout to Mondo posters. Regardless of your views on Man of Steel, the Mondo poster for it is amazing!
I have always loved the original Poster for "The Black Cauldron" with the Horned King standing behind the cauldron and the other characters placed around them. I always liked the Disney Posters that try to assemble all characters in one image better than the other ones, but of all these, the one for "The Black Cauldron" was the most impressive. Also, I love the poster for "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder standing in the middle of an archway made of images from the movie.
Growing up, I was a huge James Bond fan, and I remember getting a book of James Bond posters as a birthday present. I loved the various posters for From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker, but my all time favourite is On Her Majesty's Secret Service ('FAR UP! FAR OUT! FAR MORE! James Bond 007 is back!'). I've only come to appreciate OHMSS the film in recent years, but the poster always encapsulated what excited me about the Bond films.
The Boogie nights poster is one of my personal favorites, the one where all of the characters are encompassed by the star. I also love the posters they released for Baby Driver. Each one is completely unique and in my opinion a work of art.
An American werewolf in London fascinated me as a kid as did the shining poster. When I was seven I went to see Spiderman and the dragons challenge and on my return from the loo accidentally walked into the wrong screen where the shining was showing! I didn't see anything on the screen as the door was just bottom left of the screen but I do remember being stared at by the whole audience and quickly leaving! They must have been a bit freaked by this and it wasn't till years later when I saw the movie myself did I realise how freaky that probably was for them!!
John Alvin's posters definitely struck me the most growing up. His Disney posters, in particular, manage to encapsulate the mystery and fantasy of the films, as if they're inviting you to come and find out what kind of world it could possibly be. Standouts are the poster for Hunchback and Beauty.
I have to think of how much the poster for the 1998 Godzilla film evoked for me as a child. Of course the film itself doesn't hold up but I was obsessed with monsters back then and that poster shows a simple but terrifying image of a monster appearing in our world.
The original Return of the Jedi poster (Canada), simple black silhouettes battling over a striking red background. It just oozed passion and conflict. As a kid I adored that image. Also Brazil, the illustrated one with the exploding head. As a kid I couldn't fathom how crazy that movie must have been to merit a poster like that, and when I finally saw the film it was every bit as creative and insane as the poster.
Drew Struzan & the just passed Bill Gold are just two names that have contributed , for decades, immeasurably, to the film going experience. As Mr. Kermode alluded too, the variable quality of the films, takes nothing away from the stimulating , sense of wonder that those two, and their peers, achieved with awe-inspiring artistry.
For me it was the poster for Condorman, a poster I now own. It was just so exciting to look at.thr film, of course, hasn't really matured with age. I also recall standing gawping at the poster for Clash of the Titans and Dead and Buried (another poster I now have). Poster art now with the exception of a rare fee is cobbled together production photographs crudely photoshopped into place. I miss that thrill of just standing in the foyer and drinking in those posters.
Most recently, I'd say Rory Kurtz's poster for Baby Driver is a new favourite. For one thing, the reddish-pink colour scheme is surprisingly appealing, and really sets it apart from its other action movie brethren.
I love the poster for It Comes at Night, with the anxious dog looking out into the darkness. Fills you with anxiety with what it doesn't show you, much like the film itself.
I collected Dario Argento posters as a teenager and my favourites were Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae. One of my favourites of all time is the poster for Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesheaters and it still looks great now.
If you want and idea of whether the Star Wars films have wandered away from the original essence of the original film, check out the first poster for the film. The one with Luke with his lightsaber being held over his head as the beam shoots up out of the frame and a sexy Leia showing some leg and a blaster. Brilliant - totally captures the scale and escapism of the first film.
The posters by Andrzej Pagowski, and of Polish Cinema of the 70s and 80s in general, have innumerable examples of designs which appear immediately iconic when first seen regardless of the obscurity of the film that accompanies them. Bez konca (1985) and Amator (1979) are particularly striking examples and it seems to me to be unfortunate how these original posters tend to be thrown out for home video releases in place of generic template designs with no visual flair. Possession has two commonly-used ones, and I'm not sure which is the earlier, but one makes the film look like a generic slasher, complete with painting of an exposed female rear, but the other with the gorgon head is a beautiful piece of work. My personal favourite is The Witch Who Came from the Sea - striking pose and colouring.
One of my favourite movie poster artists is Drew Struzan and he has created a legacy of movie poster art. His 1997 Star Wars Special Edition posters are amongst my favourites. So many great posters out there, especially in the 70's/80's. Other poster art I love are King Kong (1976), Superman IV, Gremlins, Alien, Batman (1989) and Diamonds Are Forever. One in particular that always has been a personal favourite is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) with the four heroes peeking out of the manhole with the vast skyscrapers behind them. Real shame photoshop took over and lost the appeal of eye catching movie poster art by talented artists.
Absolutely love retro Italian movie posters with their vibrant colors and image composition. Some favorite posters include The Girl Who Knew Too Much, La Vita Dolce, L'avventura, and For a Few Dollars More.
1975 ...I'm 11 years old, on holiday in Newquay with my family. As we make our way off the beach, after a long hot summers day, we pass the beach front cinema. The latest showing, advertised, was THE TOWERING INFERNO and It's dramatic artwork caught my young eye. I had to see it, asap and with a little persuasion, that evening our parents escorted us to what proved to be a very memorable cinema and movie experience. The poster itself, artwork by John Berkey, is my favourite. I have it overlooking me, where I sit now. The artwork of the tower itself, is superbly descriptive. One of the few film posters that does what says on the tin. It's also my favourite film of all time.
I have half a dozen Mexican movie posters from the fifties that are absolutely beautiful and humorous but I have no idea what the films are. The French poster for Evil Dead where the woman is being grabbed by the throat by an arm thrust from the earth is great. What sets it off from the American version is the frantic swirls of color surrounding the image. It exhilarating!
'Time Bandits' really stands out for me. I didn't see it in the cinema, never saw the trailer but saw the film when it came out on video and it was the video cover which made me want to see the film, which I love to this day. It was a picture of a giant with a ship on his head. It doesn't tell you much about the film but it does give away the weirdness that is about to happen.
Yes, movie posters and print ads fascinated me in my youth and i remember cutting them out of our local newspapers if i thought they looked cool. This was around the 70s-80s, when poster art was still thriving.
Polish movie posters are some of the best I've ever seen considering how simplistic they appear to be. There's one of Sunset Boulevard and simply marvelous. Gloria Swanson is drawn on it as Norma Desmond with her hair similar to Medusa's but instead made out of film reels and that sinister cold stare she has in the movie. It's quit chilling especially with the strong red background
I have 2 examples; Akira (1988) A brilliant yet visceral adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's graphic novel which he directed, The image shows Kanada walking to his motorcycle which is in front of him. The reason it got me is the use of reds in the bike and kanada's jacket and Not showing the gritty nature of the film And also Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) which has Chihiro simply looking at a direction with the bathhouse tower in the background. The reason it got me is just the simply yet iconic image of Chihiro looking in a different direction and So much so I got to see it for the first time when I was in my early teens.
A brilliant recent poster is "The Killing of a Sacred Deer", it tells us next to nothing yet it still draws us in. "Blue" by Derek Jarman has one of the best representations of minimalism I've seen in a poster, it shows you exactly what the film is about.
I had a few as a student but - one I ran out of wall space and later went more minimal in the decoration and liked blank walls with a few items - plus my collections of books, CDs and DVDs has largely become my decoration.
The posters for Baby Driver. As soon as I saw the poster featuring the cast next to the car driving backwards on a speeding highway, I instantly went online and bought and framed it
Duncan Jones' Moon, for sure. Another that comes to mind is In The Mood For Love, but I cant recall if it was official or fanmade. Lost In Translation is another that comes to mind as well.
the 'There Will Be Blood' crucifix/oil rig poster is visually striking and says a lot about the dynamic between the two lead characters. my favourite one.
The poster for the original Dawn of the Dead has always been one of my favourites. It really encapsulates the idea of the dead inheriting the earth and makes great use of red and black.
I had the obsession, and used to collect with gusto. Even though we live in Devon, my wife and I would often take long weekends in London, the highlight of which would be a day spent trawling through our favourite stalls at the film memorabilia fairs at Westminster central hall in the 90s. I even ended up selling a few posters to Tony Nourmand, including a Canadian one sheet of Kes, which incorrectly read "Directed by Tony Garnett". I thankfully kept one of those for myself. Like you Mark, my love of posters will be with me forever, but there do seem to be far less intriguing and memorable designs these days. The ease with which movie houses can knock up a generic photo montage on a computer do seem to have made it less about design, and more about selling the film simply by letting audiences know who is in the film, and nothing else. The days of Saul Bass and Drew Struzan et al are long gone, although some beautiful posters do still appear from time to time. Quite often, the differing designs found in Poland or Japan are far more thoughtful in their designs. Amongst the posters that are potent in my cinematic memory, and ones that I still own and cherish, are the UK quad of Barry Lyndon, a super super rare reflective 3D Mylar US one sheet of The Matrix Reloaded, which consists of nothing more than the raining data of the matrix, green on black. Other favourites include a beautiful teaser one sheet of Indian Jones and The Last Crusade, featuring a portrait of Indy with his bullwhip over his shoulder by Drew Struzan, and the aforementioned "Directed by Tony Garnett" one sheet of Kes.
Once Upon a Time in America - had a seven foot poster of that bridge above my bed at University. When I finally got to New York I had to go and stand exactly, exactly, where the shot was taken from. As you do.
The original Star Wars poster with Luke and Leia standing in front of Vader's mask is really striking. It seems the one's that are hand drawn hold up better than today's photographed/cgi. Saying that though the Apocalypto poster is fantastic!
The classic Blade Runner artwork with the small silouhette of Deckard in between 'Blade' and 'Runner'. Was used for both the VHS and the Laserdisc issues of the early 90s Directors Cut. Loved it. Drew Sturzan's Final Cut artwork is impressive by itself but doesn't evoke the film as much as the classic artwork. Wish I'd kept my Laserdisc jacket with the 'The Original Cut of the Futuristic Adventure' legend.
Some more recent faves of mine are: Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park, The Master, Enemy (Gyllenhaal's head), Cabin in the Woods, Buried (had a whole campaign of good posters), Jodorowsky's Dune, The Wolverine (Japanese print), Black Swan, Macbeth and Frank.
The poster for Jim Henson's Labyrinth is my favourite. Beautifully illustrated by Ted Coconis who also did great posters for Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha and the 1970 Dorian Grey film. Other favourites would be the very creepy Nosferatu posters by Albin Grau, and the poster for the 1972 version of Kidnapped with a very dashing Michael Caine.
The Shining's poster and a lot of Saul Bass's work is a classic - despite the fact I've not seen a lot of the films. Modern day, there's a big trend for people doing their own movie posters but no one does it better than Olly Moss who has so much style and intelligence to his work, particularly his film posters. Granted, they're not the original poster though.
i have to say Jaws is the one iconic poster i always remember outside the Plaza cinema in Regent Street London and i am lucky to own an original aswell from 1975. i also love the old Hammer Horror poster art aswell.for me the cinema posters from the 70s when i was a kid still were the best art i remember.
I have been collecting posters for a while and certainly some of my favourites are actually ones you mentioned.Favourites include:- A Clockwork Orange (British Quad) - Mean Streets "Academy One" (By Peter Strausfeld) - Taxi Driver (Polish) - The Shawshank Redemption (US 1-sheet) - The Taking of Pelham 123 - If... (British Quad)- 2001: A Space OdysseyI could go on all day!!!
The first poster for Power Rangers (2017) was good. The silhouetted teenagers against the beach gave off that Nicholas Sparks vibe, yet above was the faint starry outline of the Ranger's Lighting emblem and the tagline, "Together we are more". It was a huge nod to late 90's teen dramas. As I work in a cinema, I'm glad to say a copy of the poster is now on my wall.
Yes!, I love old movie posters purely because i consider them an art form. My favourite has to be the 1927 film Metropolis. i love the large dystopian high-rises and the Maschinenmensch, whose eyes follow you around the room
I have a quad movie poster clip frame on my wall, over the past few years I've been collecting posters and they're all in the frame, stacked one atop the other, cycled regularly. So all are from films that have come out since I started and so far only 1 poster passes for "truly iconic" and that's for Under The Skin, it's absolutely beautiful. I also have a smaller Belgian poster for Empire of the Sun as it's one of my favorite films and the imagery on the poster is perfect... I'm still looking for a English version in full-size landscape quad...
late eighties, early nineties there were many walls with the poster from the 1956 film version of Orwell's 1984. with the tagline " will ecstasy be a crime"
Inside Llewyn Davis is cool with its vintage look, same goes for the 2001 a Space Odyssey poster with the Space station and the ship flying out of the docking bay
Recently the many posters of Inherent Vice really stand out for the use of neon colours on a black background. There's the main one with Joaquin phoenix and all the characters faces blended into his head, but they also released individual posters for each of the main characters.
Yes I had this obsession. Can't think of bad movies but favorite posters included Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Taxi Driver, Scarface, and Romper Stomper (Awesome poster!)
The first movie poster I remember intriguing me as a child was the original poster for Gremlins. It's just two hands holding a box with a little paw lifting the lid to reveal two glowing eyes in the darkness. I just had to see the film to find out what was in the box! This sparked a love of horror posters that subtly hinted at the terrors in the film - Alien, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing are great examples. Incidentally the Gremlins poster has been ruined in every home media release of the film by adding a fully grown Gremlin bursting through it with crayon.
Horror is always the way to go for quality posters but my favourite would have the be Suspiria and perfectly captures the aesthetic and terror of Argento's vision.
Movie posters are great indeed and some of them truly small pieces of art. I think my favourite is still the one (actually there are a couple, both great designs) for Scorsese's After Hours. I also have Barry Lyndon's one on my wall, so minimalistic yet so iconic
I'd choose 2. "The Wages of Fear" poster with Yves Montant staring out in trepidation, the explosives truck to his right and the glow of an explosion behind them. It's one of my favourite films for it's unrelenting tension and the poster evokes that same feeling of dread and dear. "M" a blood-curdling, surrealist, almost grotesque hand with a blood red 'M' at its centre. It was an image I knew for many years before i finally got to see the film. It's an endlessly watchable film and after 86 years it terrifies me that it's an ever relevant cautionary tale of protecting our children and mob mentality. Both of this posters tell stories themselves and are equally as iconic as their respective films.
One of my favourite movie posters, off the top of my head, is the Fight Club poster where Brad Pitt is holding the bar of soap. I could explain why, in detail, but I think that it does without saying that when most people think of Fight Club, one of the things that comes to mind is that poster.
As a child growing up in the 80s the posters for both Explorers and Batteries not included hit me as soon as I set foot in the video shop. It didn't matter what the rest of my family wanted to watch that weekend, these movies were calling to me. I've seen them both recently. The films aren't great, but when I see their posters I'm struck in exactly the same way as I was almost 30 years ago
The first movie poster that really grabbed my attention and triggered my imagination as a kid was the poster for the original Tron movie. I wanted to see that movie sooo bad hehe. To this day I love it to bits.
It has to be the Pulp Fiction poster with Uma Thurman facing out from the bed, an importation of 50s Glamour/Sleaze to the bedrooms of the 1990s.... as for the poster beating the film, it has to be Near Dark.
I have an obsession with "Mondo Posters". My personal favorite, Terrance Malick's "Days of Heaven", by Laurent Durieux. I have the variant version, number 156 out 175.
So many great posters - and not so great ones - that have a certain nostalgia for me! Cats video in Redruth, Cornwall - don't look for it, it's not there anymore ;) - used to do a mystery roll of 10 posters for £1 and I'd quite regularly buy one, I'd also order favourites in, and once me and my friends bought - and shared - the standee for America's Sweethearts (I kept Billy Crystal, my friends had Julia Roberts and John Cusack between them, I'm not sure what became of Catherine Zeta Jones). Anyway... Posters that I had up - and loved - included Mars Attacks! (the one with all the alien heads and one peeking out), High Fidelity, Mystery Men, Army Of Darkness (the poster I had was so removed from the tone of the film which I didn't see until years later), Trading Places. The one that I think was full of promise unfulfilled was the poster for Henry Selick's live-action / stop-motion hybrid Monkeybone, it was such a nicey composed, busy and twisted poster, and the film felt very compromised in comparison (though, probably due to that poster, I do have strange, soft spot for it). I don't think I really collect posters now because I don't quite have the wall space - and I'm sharing the wall hanging decisions with my partner - but I am still fond of my Trading Places poster, and hopefully one day shall have more space for some good film art.
I've always been a sucker for any of those crowded, manic cartoon posters by Jack Davis. He cranked out a million of them, mostly for forgettable flicks, but his "Bad News Bears" poster is pretty iconic. (No one in his posters likes to tie their shoes, for some reason!)
John Carpenter's The Thing is my favorite film and movie poster of all time, I'm so happy that I finally had it in framed in DIN A1! About the question of a great poster from a poor movie I have to say Ninja Protector with the crossbow and the ninjas in bikes.
I find that a lot of the posters which evoke the feeling of the movie are fan art, much of which adorns my walls. The poster for (the near perfect) Moneyall is very pedestrian, whereas the fan posters are wonderful. The closest from a recent studio is Baby Driver - tells you nothing and everything about the film.
Both Blade Runner, and The Wicker Man posters still adorn my wall to this day as not only are they my favourite films of all time but both are so striking and recall a time when everything wasn't photoshopped and devoid of any artistic merit. Drew Struzan has long been someone whose work I've adored ... he even managed to make Crystal Skull look good! I also loved Back To The Future, another of my all time favourites, and especially how the sequels imitated the classic original with the addition of Doc Brown for Part 2 and Clara Clayton for 3. As for posters that successfully managed to polish a turd I remember when the poster for The Phantom Menace was released with the simple but powerful image of young Anakin with the brooding shadow of Darth Vader behind him. Then I watched the film full of annoying amphibian sidekicks, way too much CGI that left the actors lost amongst what looked like a Saturday morning TV show, what felt like an episode of Wacky Races seemingly crowbarred into the narrative and the aforementioned Anakin coming across as a hyperactive kid who's had one to many Sunny Delights and all (new) hope was lost ... and that was before Episodes II, III and Darth Vader thinking he was starring in a Frankenstein spoof. Noooooooooooooo!
I thought the original teaser poster for Saving Private Ryan was so understated, yet ominous. It featured a single soldier in the distance, in shadow, under a darkening sky.
I actually think modern movie posters are amazing, like Free Fire, John Wick chapter 2, Logan, Ghost in the Shell, Live by Night and Kong Skull island just to name a few.
Suspiria's poster has really stuck with me; such a strong aesthetic that matches the film really well. The more stylistic posters of recent years are certainly better in my opinion (e.g. The Handmaiden, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), but they are in the minority. I wonder if this is partially because we're now able to composite actual film assets digitally, so we can give people a more representational idea of what the film is rather than having to rely on artists using traditional media as was necessary in the past.
I'm a big fan of movie posters, maybe not my favourite but the one I'll never forget was Fright Night and it staring out at me every time I popped in the video shop and always being way too young to rent it out but there was something about it, that face was horrible and for some reason I seem to remember it being a hologram but I can't find anything to confirm this! Nowadays the ones I really enjoy are the Polish versions of old and current movies, really quite strange and surreal some of those, there is a great website for those!
The first time I saw the Evil Dead poster was when visiting London on a school trip, on the escalator down to the tube. It too was x rated and I was way too young to see it. The image stayed with me forever.
One of the most memorable posters (although in retrospect nothing special from point of view of the design) I remember having in my room was that of Copland... Also, to my shame... The Siege :))
There's a terrific poster for Whiplash with Miles Teller on a drum kit in a spotlight, while the review quotes dwarf him from above in the majority of the poster's space. Whether intentional or not, I feel this is a fantastic means of portraying the film's point about the overwhelming nature of criticism and how it drives people to what they really want.
I agree the Whiplash poster is fantastic.
The original movie poster for "Alien" from 1979 will always be one of my favorite movie posters. The simplicity of that poster is breathtaking with the Egg in the middle and the looming green color underneath it... You don't know what to expect from the movie but you certainly expect something... special, mysterious and scary.
The Jaws poster is absolutely iconic, and sums up the fear factor of the film brilliantly.
Isaac Sargent wasn't it the book cover?
Chris Kelly It was although I think it was improved on for the paperback and film versions.
The Thing (1982). The image of the man in the snowsuit with the intangible beam of light coming from his face. It tells you just enough, without telling you anything.
Agreed! That's my favorite Drew Struzan's work.
Ditto!
I have an original of this poster and it is one of my most prized possessions
classic
Star Wars Ep I: The Phantom Menace teaser poster!
The shadow of Darth Vader looming over a young Anakin.
This poster contained more storytelling than any of the prequels.
1989 Batman. No words, no characters, no plot indication. Just one logo, writ large. Yet the excitement was palpable. Something big was coming....
The thing that draws me to movie posters for the slightly older movies is that many used traditional art. Not to discredit photography and photoshop as a medium - it's the one I work within myself, but there's something I can't get away from for a good, hand-crafted poster. Want to bring new film posters the quality and warmth of some of the older ones? Convince Drew Struzan to come out of retirement.
There are tons of great modern movie posters Mark but most are not made by the studio. They're made by fans online. Just go on pinterest and you'll see hundreds of amazing posters. Also special shoutout to Mondo posters. Regardless of your views on Man of Steel, the Mondo poster for it is amazing!
Fire Walk With Me (one of if not my favourite film) has my favourite poster, Also Mike Leigh's Naked has an amazing poster
I have always loved the original Poster for "The Black Cauldron" with the Horned King standing behind the cauldron and the other characters placed around them. I always liked the Disney Posters that try to assemble all characters in one image better than the other ones, but of all these, the one for "The Black Cauldron" was the most impressive.
Also, I love the poster for "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder standing in the middle of an archway made of images from the movie.
Growing up, I was a huge James Bond fan, and I remember getting a book of James Bond posters as a birthday present. I loved the various posters for From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker, but my all time favourite is On Her Majesty's Secret Service ('FAR UP! FAR OUT! FAR MORE! James Bond 007 is back!'). I've only come to appreciate OHMSS the film in recent years, but the poster always encapsulated what excited me about the Bond films.
The Boogie nights poster is one of my personal favorites, the one where all of the characters are encompassed by the star. I also love the posters they released for Baby Driver. Each one is completely unique and in my opinion a work of art.
An American werewolf in London fascinated me as a kid as did the shining poster. When I was seven I went to see Spiderman and the dragons challenge and on my return from the loo accidentally walked into the wrong screen where the shining was showing! I didn't see anything on the screen as the door was just bottom left of the screen but I do remember being stared at by the whole audience and quickly leaving! They must have been a bit freaked by this and it wasn't till years later when I saw the movie myself did I realise how freaky that probably was for them!!
I really like this story.
John Alvin's posters definitely struck me the most growing up. His Disney posters, in particular, manage to encapsulate the mystery and fantasy of the films, as if they're inviting you to come and find out what kind of world it could possibly be. Standouts are the poster for Hunchback and Beauty.
I have to think of how much the poster for the 1998 Godzilla film evoked for me as a child. Of course the film itself doesn't hold up but I was obsessed with monsters back then and that poster shows a simple but terrifying image of a monster appearing in our world.
Cagerage King the giant foot? love it
Yep- glad I'm not the only one!
The original Return of the Jedi poster (Canada), simple black silhouettes battling over a striking red background. It just oozed passion and conflict. As a kid I adored that image. Also Brazil, the illustrated one with the exploding head. As a kid I couldn't fathom how crazy that movie must have been to merit a poster like that, and when I finally saw the film it was every bit as creative and insane as the poster.
Drew Struzan & the just passed Bill Gold are just two names that have contributed , for decades, immeasurably, to the film going experience. As Mr. Kermode alluded too, the variable quality of the films, takes nothing away from the stimulating , sense of wonder that those two, and their peers, achieved with awe-inspiring artistry.
For me it was the poster for Condorman, a poster I now own. It was just so exciting to look at.thr film, of course, hasn't really matured with age. I also recall standing gawping at the poster for Clash of the Titans and Dead and Buried (another poster I now have). Poster art now with the exception of a rare fee is cobbled together production photographs crudely photoshopped into place. I miss that thrill of just standing in the foyer and drinking in those posters.
Most recently, I'd say Rory Kurtz's poster for Baby Driver is a new favourite. For one thing, the reddish-pink colour scheme is surprisingly appealing, and really sets it apart from its other action movie brethren.
I love the poster for It Comes at Night, with the anxious dog looking out into the darkness. Fills you with anxiety with what it doesn't show you, much like the film itself.
I collected Dario Argento posters as a teenager and my favourites were Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae. One of my favourites of all time is the poster for Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesheaters and it still looks great now.
Inherent Vice has to be one of my favourite movie posters in recent years.
The silence of the lambs poster was and still is iconic. Just looking at the poster now gets me creeped out.
If you want and idea of whether the Star Wars films have wandered away from the original essence of the original film, check out the first poster for the film. The one with Luke with his lightsaber being held over his head as the beam shoots up out of the frame and a sexy Leia showing some leg and a blaster. Brilliant - totally captures the scale and escapism of the first film.
The posters by Andrzej Pagowski, and of Polish Cinema of the 70s and 80s in general, have innumerable examples of designs which appear immediately iconic when first seen regardless of the obscurity of the film that accompanies them. Bez konca (1985) and Amator (1979) are particularly striking examples and it seems to me to be unfortunate how these original posters tend to be thrown out for home video releases in place of generic template designs with no visual flair. Possession has two commonly-used ones, and I'm not sure which is the earlier, but one makes the film look like a generic slasher, complete with painting of an exposed female rear, but the other with the gorgon head is a beautiful piece of work. My personal favourite is The Witch Who Came from the Sea - striking pose and colouring.
One of my favourite movie poster artists is Drew Struzan and he has created a legacy of movie poster art. His 1997 Star Wars Special Edition posters are amongst my favourites. So many great posters out there, especially in the 70's/80's. Other poster art I love are King Kong (1976), Superman IV, Gremlins, Alien, Batman (1989) and Diamonds Are Forever. One in particular that always has been a personal favourite is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) with the four heroes peeking out of the manhole with the vast skyscrapers behind them. Real shame photoshop took over and lost the appeal of eye catching movie poster art by talented artists.
Absolutely love retro Italian movie posters with their vibrant colors and image composition. Some favorite posters include The Girl Who Knew Too Much, La Vita Dolce, L'avventura, and For a Few Dollars More.
The poster for the original Tron definitely promised more of a movie than it was. Beautiful all the same.
1975 ...I'm 11 years old, on holiday in Newquay with my family. As we make our way off the beach, after a long hot summers day, we pass the beach front cinema. The latest showing, advertised, was THE TOWERING INFERNO and It's dramatic artwork caught my young eye. I had to see it, asap and with a little persuasion, that evening our parents escorted us to what proved to be a very memorable cinema and movie experience.
The poster itself, artwork by John Berkey, is my favourite. I have it overlooking me, where I sit now. The artwork of the tower itself, is superbly descriptive. One of the few film posters that does what says on the tin. It's also my favourite film of all time.
I have half a dozen Mexican movie posters from the fifties that are absolutely beautiful and humorous but I have no idea what the films are. The French poster for Evil Dead where the woman is being grabbed by the throat by an arm thrust from the earth is great. What sets it off from the American version is the frantic swirls of color surrounding the image. It exhilarating!
You can't beat the poster for Apocalypse Now, something about that iconic image of helicopters across that sunset always gives me chills.
'Time Bandits' really stands out for me. I didn't see it in the cinema, never saw the trailer but saw the film when it came out on video and it was the video cover which made me want to see the film, which I love to this day. It was a picture of a giant with a ship on his head. It doesn't tell you much about the film but it does give away the weirdness that is about to happen.
Yes, movie posters and print ads fascinated me in my youth and i remember cutting them out of our local newspapers if i thought they looked cool. This was around the 70s-80s, when poster art was still thriving.
Polish movie posters are some of the best I've ever seen considering how simplistic they appear to be. There's one of Sunset Boulevard and simply marvelous. Gloria Swanson is drawn on it as Norma Desmond with her hair similar to Medusa's but instead made out of film reels and that sinister cold stare she has in the movie. It's quit chilling especially with the strong red background
I have 2 examples; Akira (1988) A brilliant yet visceral adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's graphic novel which he directed, The image shows Kanada walking to his motorcycle which is in front of him. The reason it got me is the use of reds in the bike and kanada's jacket and Not showing the gritty nature of the film
And also Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) which has Chihiro simply looking at a direction with the bathhouse tower in the background. The reason it got me is just the simply yet iconic image of Chihiro looking in a different direction and So much so I got to see it for the first time when I was in my early teens.
A brilliant recent poster is "The Killing of a Sacred Deer", it tells us next to nothing yet it still draws us in.
"Blue" by Derek Jarman has one of the best representations of minimalism I've seen in a poster, it shows you exactly what the film is about.
my pride & joy from 1963 this is the uk quad for It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
It took me 15 yrs plus to track one down x
I had a few as a student but - one I ran out of wall space and later went more minimal in the decoration and liked blank walls with a few items - plus my collections of books, CDs and DVDs has largely become my decoration.
I had the Hot Shots! poster on my wall for about 15 years.... loved it
Drew Struzan's artwork will always been the quintessential examples of poster art. A few of my favs are from the BTTF trilogy.
The posters for Baby Driver. As soon as I saw the poster featuring the cast next to the car driving backwards on a speeding highway, I instantly went online and bought and framed it
Duncan Jones' Moon, for sure. Another that comes to mind is In The Mood For Love, but I cant recall if it was official or fanmade. Lost In Translation is another that comes to mind as well.
the 'There Will Be Blood' crucifix/oil rig poster is visually striking and says a lot about the dynamic between the two lead characters. my favourite one.
The poster for the original Dawn of the Dead has always been one of my favourites. It really encapsulates the idea of the dead inheriting the earth and makes great use of red and black.
I had the obsession, and used to collect with gusto. Even though we live in Devon, my wife and I would often take long weekends in London, the highlight of which would be a day spent trawling through our favourite stalls at the film memorabilia fairs at Westminster central hall in the 90s.
I even ended up selling a few posters to Tony Nourmand, including a Canadian one sheet of Kes, which incorrectly read "Directed by Tony Garnett". I thankfully kept one of those for myself.
Like you Mark, my love of posters will be with me forever, but there do seem to be far less intriguing and memorable designs these days. The ease with which movie houses can knock up a generic photo montage on a computer do seem to have made it less about design, and more about selling the film simply by letting audiences know who is in the film, and nothing else. The days of Saul Bass and Drew Struzan et al are long gone, although some beautiful posters do still appear from time to time. Quite often, the differing designs found in Poland or Japan are far more thoughtful in their designs.
Amongst the posters that are potent in my cinematic memory, and ones that I still own and cherish, are the UK quad of Barry Lyndon, a super super rare reflective 3D Mylar US one sheet of The Matrix Reloaded, which consists of nothing more than the raining data of the matrix, green on black. Other favourites include a beautiful teaser one sheet of Indian Jones and The Last Crusade, featuring a portrait of Indy with his bullwhip over his shoulder by Drew Struzan, and the aforementioned "Directed by Tony Garnett" one sheet of Kes.
The Handmaiden is the best poster I've seen all year. It's beautiful.
The recent dark tower poster is I think an excellent example of what you described at the end.
Once Upon a Time in America - had a seven foot poster of that bridge above my bed at University. When I finally got to New York I had to go and stand exactly, exactly, where the shot was taken from. As you do.
The poster for the 1977 Star Wars is a favourite of mine; it possesses an epic and majestic quality
Yes I collected movie posters there was a shop in London that sold movie posters always used to pop in there
The original Star Wars poster with Luke and Leia standing in front of Vader's mask is really striking. It seems the one's that are hand drawn hold up better than today's photographed/cgi. Saying that though the Apocalypto poster is fantastic!
The classic Blade Runner artwork with the small silouhette of Deckard in between 'Blade' and 'Runner'. Was used for both the VHS and the Laserdisc issues of the early 90s Directors Cut. Loved it. Drew Sturzan's Final Cut artwork is impressive by itself but doesn't evoke the film as much as the classic artwork. Wish I'd kept my Laserdisc jacket with the 'The Original Cut of the Futuristic Adventure' legend.
Some more recent faves of mine are: Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park, The Master, Enemy (Gyllenhaal's head), Cabin in the Woods, Buried (had a whole campaign of good posters), Jodorowsky's Dune, The Wolverine (Japanese print), Black Swan, Macbeth and Frank.
The poster for Jim Henson's Labyrinth is my favourite. Beautifully illustrated by Ted Coconis who also did great posters for Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha and the 1970 Dorian Grey film. Other favourites would be the very creepy Nosferatu posters by Albin Grau, and the poster for the 1972 version of Kidnapped with a very dashing Michael Caine.
The Shining's poster and a lot of Saul Bass's work is a classic - despite the fact I've not seen a lot of the films.
Modern day, there's a big trend for people doing their own movie posters but no one does it better than Olly Moss who has so much style and intelligence to his work, particularly his film posters. Granted, they're not the original poster though.
i have to say Jaws is the one iconic poster i always remember outside the Plaza cinema in Regent Street London and i am lucky to own an original aswell from 1975. i also love the old Hammer Horror poster art aswell.for me the cinema posters from the 70s when i was a kid still were the best art i remember.
I have been collecting posters for a while and certainly some of my favourites are actually ones you mentioned.Favourites include:- A Clockwork Orange (British Quad)
- Mean Streets "Academy One" (By Peter Strausfeld)
- Taxi Driver (Polish)
- The Shawshank Redemption (US 1-sheet)
- The Taking of Pelham 123
- If... (British Quad)- 2001: A Space OdysseyI could go on all day!!!
The first poster for Power Rangers (2017) was good. The silhouetted teenagers against the beach gave off that Nicholas Sparks vibe, yet above was the faint starry outline of the Ranger's Lighting emblem and the tagline, "Together we are more". It was a huge nod to late 90's teen dramas. As I work in a cinema, I'm glad to say a copy of the poster is now on my wall.
Yes!, I love old movie posters purely because i consider them an art form. My favourite has to be the 1927 film Metropolis. i love the large dystopian high-rises and the Maschinenmensch, whose eyes follow you around the room
I have a quad movie poster clip frame on my wall, over the past few years I've been collecting posters and they're all in the frame, stacked one atop the other, cycled regularly. So all are from films that have come out since I started and so far only 1 poster passes for "truly iconic" and that's for Under The Skin, it's absolutely beautiful. I also have a smaller Belgian poster for Empire of the Sun as it's one of my favorite films and the imagery on the poster is perfect... I'm still looking for a English version in full-size landscape quad...
late eighties, early nineties there were many walls with the poster from the 1956 film version of Orwell's 1984. with the tagline " will ecstasy be a crime"
Inside Llewyn Davis is cool with its vintage look, same goes for the 2001 a Space Odyssey poster with the Space station and the ship flying out of the docking bay
Recently the many posters of Inherent Vice really stand out for the use of neon colours on a black background. There's the main one with Joaquin phoenix and all the characters faces blended into his head, but they also released individual posters for each of the main characters.
Love the poster for Get Out. Thankfully, the movie's fantastic, too.
The Act of Killing (2014). The poster perfectly encapsulates the surreal fantasies which are explored in the film.
Yes I had this obsession. Can't think of bad movies but favorite posters included Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Taxi Driver, Scarface, and Romper Stomper (Awesome poster!)
DRACULA (1958), an all time classic movie poster.
My other favorite movie poster, which i have myself is the british quad poster for PSYCHO II.
The first movie poster I remember intriguing me as a child was the original poster for Gremlins. It's just two hands holding a box with a little paw lifting the lid to reveal two glowing eyes in the darkness. I just had to see the film to find out what was in the box! This sparked a love of horror posters that subtly hinted at the terrors in the film - Alien, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing are great examples. Incidentally the Gremlins poster has been ruined in every home media release of the film by adding a fully grown Gremlin bursting through it with crayon.
Horror is always the way to go for quality posters but my favourite would have the be Suspiria and perfectly captures the aesthetic and terror of Argento's vision.
Movie posters are great indeed and some of them truly small pieces of art. I think my favourite is still the one (actually there are a couple, both great designs) for Scorsese's After Hours. I also have Barry Lyndon's one on my wall, so minimalistic yet so iconic
Just watched "Zardoz"...i must say i like it alittle more then i should. Its a guilty pleasure that i will stand by😊
I'd choose 2.
"The Wages of Fear" poster with Yves Montant staring out in trepidation, the explosives truck to his right and the glow of an explosion behind them. It's one of my favourite films for it's unrelenting tension and the poster evokes that same feeling of dread and dear.
"M" a blood-curdling, surrealist, almost grotesque hand with a blood red 'M' at its centre. It was an image I knew for many years before i finally got to see the film. It's an endlessly watchable film and after 86 years it terrifies me that it's an ever relevant cautionary tale of protecting our children and mob mentality.
Both of this posters tell stories themselves and are equally as iconic as their respective films.
The original quad poster for Star Wars by Tom Chantrell. Fabulous!
One of my favourite movie posters, off the top of my head, is the Fight Club poster where Brad Pitt is holding the bar of soap. I could explain why, in detail, but I think that it does without saying that when most people think of Fight Club, one of the things that comes to mind is that poster.
As a child growing up in the 80s the posters for both Explorers and Batteries not included hit me as soon as I set foot in the video shop. It didn't matter what the rest of my family wanted to watch that weekend, these movies were calling to me.
I've seen them both recently. The films aren't great, but when I see their posters I'm struck in exactly the same way as I was almost 30 years ago
The first movie poster that really grabbed my attention and triggered my imagination as a kid was the poster for the original Tron movie. I wanted to see that movie sooo bad hehe. To this day I love it to bits.
It has to be the Pulp Fiction poster with Uma Thurman facing out from the bed, an importation of 50s Glamour/Sleaze to the bedrooms of the 1990s.... as for the poster beating the film, it has to be Near Dark.
A little off topic, but David Shire's soundtrack for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is incredible.
I have an obsession with "Mondo Posters". My personal favorite, Terrance Malick's "Days of Heaven", by Laurent Durieux. I have the variant version, number 156 out 175.
The poster for Baby Driver really sold it for me. Best poster in years!
So many great posters - and not so great ones - that have a certain nostalgia for me! Cats video in Redruth, Cornwall - don't look for it, it's not there anymore ;) - used to do a mystery roll of 10 posters for £1 and I'd quite regularly buy one, I'd also order favourites in, and once me and my friends bought - and shared - the standee for America's Sweethearts (I kept Billy Crystal, my friends had Julia Roberts and John Cusack between them, I'm not sure what became of Catherine Zeta Jones).
Anyway... Posters that I had up - and loved - included Mars Attacks! (the one with all the alien heads and one peeking out), High Fidelity, Mystery Men, Army Of Darkness (the poster I had was so removed from the tone of the film which I didn't see until years later), Trading Places.
The one that I think was full of promise unfulfilled was the poster for Henry Selick's live-action / stop-motion hybrid Monkeybone, it was such a nicey composed, busy and twisted poster, and the film felt very compromised in comparison (though, probably due to that poster, I do have strange, soft spot for it).
I don't think I really collect posters now because I don't quite have the wall space - and I'm sharing the wall hanging decisions with my partner - but I am still fond of my Trading Places poster, and hopefully one day shall have more space for some good film art.
The chatacter collage star wars poster. Good/evil/guns/swords/spaceships/light/darkness/love/aliens. It promises so much in just one image
I've always been a sucker for any of those crowded, manic cartoon posters by Jack Davis. He cranked out a million of them, mostly for forgettable flicks, but his "Bad News Bears" poster is pretty iconic. (No one in his posters likes to tie their shoes, for some reason!)
John Carpenter's The Thing is my favorite film and movie poster of all time, I'm so happy that I finally had it in framed in DIN A1!
About the question of a great poster from a poor movie I have to say Ninja Protector with the crossbow and the ninjas in bikes.
I find that a lot of the posters which evoke the feeling of the movie are fan art, much of which adorns my walls. The poster for (the near perfect) Moneyall is very pedestrian, whereas the fan posters are wonderful.
The closest from a recent studio is Baby Driver - tells you nothing and everything about the film.
Do you think Mark can get through one episode without mentioning the exorcist?
lol, no
S0L ACE you'd be disappointed if he didn't
S0L ACE I wouldn't want him to. The day he doesn't is the day the real Mark has been replaced by a replicant.
Both Blade Runner, and The Wicker Man posters still adorn my wall to this day as not only are they my favourite films of all time but both are so striking and recall a time when everything wasn't photoshopped and devoid of any artistic merit. Drew Struzan has long been someone whose work I've adored ... he even managed to make Crystal Skull look good! I also loved Back To The Future, another of my all time favourites, and especially how the sequels imitated the classic original with the addition of Doc Brown for Part 2 and Clara Clayton for 3.
As for posters that successfully managed to polish a turd I remember when the poster for The Phantom Menace was released with the simple but powerful image of young Anakin with the brooding shadow of Darth Vader behind him. Then I watched the film full of annoying amphibian sidekicks, way too much CGI that left the actors lost amongst what looked like a Saturday morning TV show, what felt like an episode of Wacky Races seemingly crowbarred into the narrative and the aforementioned Anakin coming across as a hyperactive kid who's had one to many Sunny Delights and all (new) hope was lost ... and that was before Episodes II, III and Darth Vader thinking he was starring in a Frankenstein spoof. Noooooooooooooo!
The poster for drive is fantastic
Baby Driver is a recent movie with a poster I like.
You can't beat the poster for Apocalypse Now.
The Exorcist poster - only just noticed that there's a car on the drive.
Both KIDS and a Spanish film which I think is called Ana y Los lobos,which both itslise silk silk screen colour on black to great extent
hildebrandt star wars poster got me every time. Never seen anything like that at the time.
I thought the original teaser poster for Saving Private Ryan was so understated, yet ominous. It featured a single soldier in the distance, in shadow, under a darkening sky.
I actually think modern movie posters are amazing, like Free Fire, John Wick chapter 2, Logan, Ghost in the Shell, Live by Night and Kong Skull island just to name a few.
A favourite goes to Jack Cardiff's 'Dark of the Sun' 1968.
Suspiria's poster has really stuck with me; such a strong aesthetic that matches the film really well.
The more stylistic posters of recent years are certainly better in my opinion (e.g. The Handmaiden, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), but they are in the minority. I wonder if this is partially because we're now able to composite actual film assets digitally, so we can give people a more representational idea of what the film is rather than having to rely on artists using traditional media as was necessary in the past.
I'm a big fan of movie posters, maybe not my favourite but the one I'll never forget was Fright Night and it staring out at me every time I popped in the video shop and always being way too young to rent it out but there was something about it, that face was horrible and for some reason I seem to remember it being a hologram but I can't find anything to confirm this! Nowadays the ones I really enjoy are the Polish versions of old and current movies, really quite strange and surreal some of those, there is a great website for those!
The first time I saw the Evil Dead poster was when visiting London on a school trip, on the escalator down to the tube. It too was x rated and I was way too young to see it. The image stayed with me forever.
One of the most memorable posters (although in retrospect nothing special from point of view of the design) I remember having in my room was that of Copland... Also, to my shame... The Siege :))