I've been keeping an eye out for great movie posters ever since Premiere uncovered their list of The 25 Best Movie Posters. Here are just a few that I love:
1. Casablanca (1942)I first realized my love for this poster when "Entertainment Weekly" ran a piece about the poster for The Good German. Although the The Good German poster a pretty awesome, I'll just celebrate its inspiration. I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the Casablanca, but I LOVE--I mean LOVE--the poster. I love how they placed the characters in a semi-collage, I love the fonts they used, I love how the title of the film just pops out in red, I love the text placement, and I love the way Humphrey Bogart is pointing his gun because it just looks too cool. I just adore everything about this poster.
2. Jurassic Park (1993)Created By: John Alvin
I first saw this poster at a local Blockbusters when I was younger. I instantly wanted to rent the movie. But then I realized I've already seen the movie before (haha), I just didn't pay much attention the poster. The inspiration for this poster is obviously taken from the original paperback cover of the Michael Crichton novel, but the creator made it cooler. I love the black-on-red-on-black-with-orange color scheme. I love the font, too. Not only is the dinosaur skeleton an iconic image of the nineties, it's just simply an alluring, amazing poster. I found out that John Alvin created other movie posters I love, like the posters for E.T., Beauty and the Beast, etc.
3. Manhattan (1979)Woody Allen's love letter to New York City is--from beginning to end--a series of gorgeous black-and-white photographs put together as a film. So it was pretty much brilliant for the poster to include a scene from the movie. Plus, to fulfill my silly obsession with fonts, I love how some of the letters are shaped like buildings (haha). I wish I could find a insanely high quality image of the poster online, but this is the highest quality version I could find.
4. The Hours (2002)I first saw this poster hanging in a movie theater back in early 2002. There is something so haunting about this image of the three women. The Hours is quite a darkly serious film, and the poster reflects that perfectly. Although the three women are actually characters from different time periods, they blend together as one in the poster. The color scheme--full of warm, neutral colors--is utilized beyond excellence.
5. My Fair Lady (1964)This poster is totally fun and chaotic, but completely creative as well. The poster reflects the movie's upbeat and optimistic atmosphere. I absolutely love the overdose of the color pink here, a color that could go tremendously wrong sometimes. Of course, the poster also accentuates the faces of the stars--Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison--in a rather lovely way.
Honorable Mentions (or next 5): Marathon Man, Funny Face, The Sound of Music, Forrest Gump, Enter the Dragon
For those who are interested in a movie-poster related site, I stumbled upon MoviePosterDB.com, which seemed sort of interesting. If you have any favorite movie posters or you think I forgot a few, please share!
The poster for The Hours is so perfect. It's just so stunning. I really love how they're rendered stylistically like that too.
ReplyDeleteAND THE NAMES ARE IN ORDER!!!
Very nice blog, btw. :)
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYo.
ReplyDeleteI find your poster choices pretty interesting because their excellence is rather subtle. I mean, there really isn't one flashy poster in the bunch, and I think that's impressive. Kudos to you!
Plus, extra points (in my subjective book) on mentioning PREMIERE magazine.
*Sigh.*
I used to subscribe to that magazine and then it got canceled. To finish out my subscription they started sending me ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, which was fairly new at the time.
Whether you like EW as a magazine now or not, way back then it wasn't nearly as interesting as it is now .
Ugh.
Really lame substitute for PREMIERE.
*Sigh again.*
Okay, this may not impress you at all, or perhaps even totally repulse you on some level.
ReplyDeleteOr you may find these strangely compelling and entertaining!
Here's a link to some hand-painted Indian film posters, the majority of which are horror films.
http://escolar.net/petite/archives/bollywood/
@cattleworks: Those Bollywood film posters are pretty cool. I saw some Russian film posters way back when that were cool too and if I ever find that site again, I'll remember to show them to you. I like foreign posters in general, though.
ReplyDeleteI like "Entertainment Weekly" quite a lot. It's a nice magazine publication, if not the best. But what's great about the magazine is that you get a lot with the low price. I'm an alumni, so now I get the magazines for $10/year. It's a pretty good deal. I'd rather subscribe to "Premiere" or "Empire" any day, though--but it's way out of my price range.