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What are your favorite movie posters?

movie-postersOh great and powerful internet, I need help with something…

I had a random idea for a lesson on visual close reading in my class next semester and I need to put together a bunch of movie posters in in a powerpoint to do it. So, question for everyone. What are your favorite movie posters. I’m looking for POSTERS that stick out in your mind, NOT movies. Something that calls attention to itself, is memorable to you and somehow tells a story with the picture. The story it tells DOESN’T necessarily have to be the story of the film. Lots of them are misleading. That is fine for this, and in fact even interesting. It also doesn’t have to be a good movie or one that most people have even seen. In fact, it might even be better if they’re films my students haven’t seen (but don’t limit yourselves)

I’ll also take comic book or album covers if you can think of something particularly interesting there.

So what do you have? (Just throw ideas at me…  and if you have a link to the image that might be helpful too).

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36 comments for “What are your favorite movie posters?

  1. December 26, 2014 at 7:56 pm

    the poster they used for (pre special edition) prereleases and vhs covers of The Empire Strikes Back, always seemed to me the perfect cover, the way it had old and new characters on it. jaws of course tells the story in one simple image. akira, and dark city i had the posters hanging in dorm rooms.

  2. December 27, 2014 at 12:56 am

    bairdduvessa commented on ChrisMaverick dotcom:

    the poster they used for (pre special edition) prereleases and vhs covers of The Empire Strikes Back, always seemed to me the perfect cover, the way it had old and new characters on it. jaws of course tells the story in one simple image. akira, and dark city i had the posters hanging in dorm rooms.

  3. December 26, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    Does it have to be the official poster? This shop has some really great reimaginings (the link is to Harry Potter posters): https://www.etsy.com/listing/116690319/the-harry-potter-collection-11×17-size?ref=shop_home_active_1

  4. December 27, 2014 at 1:17 am

    Does it have to be the official poster? This shop has some really great reimaginings (the link is to Harry Potter posters): https://www.etsy.com/listing/116690319/the-harry-potter-collection-11×17-size?ref=shop_home_active_1

  5. December 26, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    Pretty Woman and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. (Pretty Woman seems consistent with the movie, Emily Rose does not, but I think that’s because Emily Rose was marketed as another Exorcist movie, when it was secretly a courtroom drama with Laura Linney.)

  6. December 26, 2014 at 8:20 pm

    Baird: I’m not sure which poster you mean for Empire. Link to it? (The others I know)

    Jenn: I was thinking official ones, but I guess it doesn’t have to be. Is there one in particular you were thinking?

    Connie: Pretty Woman is a good one. I almost put it on my sample pic there. Exorcism of Emily Rose is a really good one.

  7. December 26, 2014 at 8:23 pm

    My favorite form the shop I linked to is the Deathly Hallows movie. My other favorite poster is the Japanese Amelie: http://www.amazon.com/27×40-Amelie-Japanese-Style-Poster/dp/B0016D6UPO

  8. December 26, 2014 at 8:24 pm

    I’m actually considering making sure I use all japanese ones or something (well, any foreign language), so that they can’t read the titles

  9. December 26, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    The phantom menace poster was great (better than the movie, in all respects):
    http://www.empireonline.com/features/stunning-movie-teaser-posters/p25

  10. December 26, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    Ethan: Oh! that’s a really good one

  11. Ryan
    December 26, 2014 at 8:57 pm

    What I like best is just minimalist posters. Search minimalist movie posters on Google. I thing everything on page one is great.

    For example:

    http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonoberholtzer/files/2011/03/breakfastclub.jpg.

  12. December 26, 2014 at 9:04 pm

    Gonna go with Star Wars.

  13. December 26, 2014 at 9:48 pm

    Spiderman 3 did a lenticular poster that went from red costume to black costume. Very eye catching. And if you want one (of the about 200 that were made), $750 will do it. 🙂

  14. December 26, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    Kathleen: whatever you’re trying to link to seems to be a broken link.

  15. December 26, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    Interesting since it shows up for me…. Six String Samurai

  16. December 26, 2014 at 10:11 pm

    The Phantom Menace was going to be my suggestion — *great* storytelling in that image. I also like the poster for Face/Off.

    I think you could possibly do something with the changes in movie posters from old style ones (like, say, “Charade” and “Night of the Hunter”, both of which tell stories — in NoH’s case VERY misleading ones) to newer-type ones, some of which you start to see around the same time as Charade — I’m thinking of “Psycho” in particular, but also other Hitchcock movies had more story-based, iconic images to them. (Psycho had a few, including at least one I think of as old-style and one I think of as new-style; if you google you’ll probably immediately see what I mean.)

  17. December 27, 2014 at 3:12 am

    Ryan commented on ChrisMaverick dotcom:

    What I like best is just minimalist posters. Search minimalist movie posters on Google. I thing everything on page one is great.

    For example:

    http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonoberholtzer/files/2011/03/breakfastclub.jpg.

  18. December 26, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    oh! The Big Lebowski. Just about any of those posters.

  19. December 26, 2014 at 11:31 pm

    (click on the image… the preview doesn’t show the whole thing. The words at the top complete the poster:
    DeMented. DeRanged. DeCeptive. DePalma.

  20. December 27, 2014 at 12:09 am

    The Shadow ( http://www.impawards.com/1994/shadow_ver2.html ) sticks out to me.

  21. December 27, 2014 at 2:33 am

    I was also going to suggest E.T., but not that poster, actually, which I don’t remember seeing at the time. The one which I recall fascinating me when I was in the theater was this one: http://www.impawards.com/1982/posters/e_t_the_extra_terrestrial_ver3_xlg.jpg I would also use Jurassic Park.

  22. December 27, 2014 at 3:29 am

    The Thing. 1982 version. Simple and very effective, as well as communicates the “who goes there?” theme.

  23. December 27, 2014 at 3:31 am

    It always reminded me of the episode of Outer Limits I saw when I was a super youngn’, about an electrical being trapped.

  24. December 27, 2014 at 9:49 am

    The Graduate.

  25. December 27, 2014 at 2:35 pm

    I like the poster for My Neighbor Totoro. I can’t add a link to it from my mobile. Both English and Japanese are available for it.

  26. December 27, 2014 at 5:32 pm

    The Shining.

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