50 Of The Best And Most Iconic Movie Posters Ever | Base Memorabilia

50 Of The Best And Most Iconic Movie Posters Ever

What is a film without its poster? More than just a bit of marketing, posters have evolved into an art form in themselves, showcasing the blistering work of the world’s greatest illustrators and designers with clever concepts, elegant artwork, and boldly original ideas. From the ingenious designs to the iconic stills to the student favourites, here are what we regard as 50 of the greatest movie posters ever to grace a cinema wall – see if you agree.

#50. Little Miss Sunshine


A great example of the colour scheme that extends from a film to its marketing. Yellow emanates from this heartwarming Sundance hit, seen on Paul Dano’s t-shirt and the lovably rubbish VW campervan, here flooding the negative space of both trailer and poster. Showing a key element of the film – the van doesn’t start easily, so the family have to run and jump into it – it presents an image in motion, but without losing the sense of family and humour.

#49. The Graduate


Immortalising the most notorious seduction in cinematic history, Anne Bancroft’s partially-stockinged leg seduces everyone who gazes upon this classic poster. Except it isn’t actually Anne Bancroft’s pin: 46 years after release, model and Dallas star Linda Gray revealed that it was her leg on the poster, as Bancroft couldn’t make the shoot. Gray was paid $25 for the shot – not a bad leg-up.

#48. Mean Streets


Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough film has a groundbreaking poster to match, a gorgeous representation of the darker side of Little Italy, with the New York neighbourhood’s physical features – fire escapes, stoops, rooftop water towers – melded into graded-colour graphic, with Johnny Boy’s smoking gun doubling as a high-rise chimney.

#47. Lord Of War


Nicolas Cage has the look of Lord Kitchener in this ingeniously simple poster for arms trafficking drama Lord Of War. At first glance, it’s a straightforward headshot. Look closer, and it’s a headshot in more ways than one: every fragment of The Cage is made up of bullet and shell casings. It’s a meticulous mosaic of militarism, and it works like a treat.

#46. Manhattan


Matt Needle’s design seems almost obvious now, such as this poster’s ubiquity and influence. But it’s brilliantly deliberate and thoughtfully constructed: the monochrome reflecting Woody Allen’s black-and-white cinematography, the white negative space hinting at the wintry setting, the typography gently morphed into the skyline, and the famous bench shot of the Queensboro Bridge taking precedence.

#45. Love In The Afternoon


An early design from the legendary Saul Bass, his trademark jaunty typography and bold emblematic graphics proving an ideal fit for Billy Wilder’s screwball romantic comedy. The block of black is bold and imposing, but there’s something rather fun about the sense of impending movement in the blackout blind, ready to whizz upwards.

#44. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas


A Ralph Steadman poster for a film adaptation of a Hunter S. Thompson book seemed almost inevitable, given that the Welsh artist’s surreal, explosive style had accompanied Thompson’s gonzo missives for years. It is, as you might expect, a match made in acid-fuelled heaven, Johnny Depp’s head warped into Dali-esque delirium.

#43. The Thing


“The ultimate in alien horror”, reads the tagline, and this is the ultimate in Drew Struzan poster design – at least among his horror output. Perhaps what’s powerful is that the imagery does not directly reference any scene in the film. It’s pure Struzan: having been given the briefest of briefs, and knowing next-to-nothing about what the movie was about, he whipped it up in 24 hours, the paint still wet when the courier picked it up.

#42. The Social Network


The Social Network wasn’t the first poster to start the Big Letters On A Face poster trend, but it was the most memorable, and effective. That giant tagline – written in Futura, David Fincher’s favourite font – is a pithy summary of the film’s premise, while the film’s title, unusually set on the left-hand side, cheekily parodies the Facebook logo and header. Like all of Fincher’s films, the marketing has his fingerprints all over it.

#41. Breakfast At Tiffany’s


Some posters do just as much work as the film in establishing an iconography and legend. This poster for Breakfast At Tiffany’s turned Audrey Hepburn from wide-eyed innocent into socialite aspiration, establishing Holly Golightly as the café society dream girl that predated the Manic Pixie variety by decades.

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