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Lot of retro style posters. Nice collection.

Great Collection!
I agree… I miss this slowly fading art.

Nice collection! I love the “Vacancy” the best!

great collection, but where is jurassic park? forrest gump?

Wow….Great Post…..PULP FICTION is the best.

So inspiring! Most of these are really amazing. I think the first W post is lackluster and I’ve always been bothered by the placement of the type in Moulin Rouge with the stars names. Given that they are catering to some pretty big egos I can understand, otherwise its gorgeous. Love to see so many traditional paintings and illustrations in there- I love paintings done on the computer just as much but sometimes people forget about our design past!

This makes me want to do more post designs. What a creative field!

Woah, where did you find those posters for The Fountain? Were they the international versions or something? They are awesome.

Chinatown ?

great collection. Dug planet of the apes, never seen that one before, it’s a fantastic poster. also vertigo, day watch, v for vendetta and dark knight were great selections.

Great list ! Thanks you

Though I dislike retro style, I found some interesting retro posters in this list. I liked ‘The Birds’, ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Perfume’, and ‘American Beuaty’ the best.

Great efforrt Alessandro Cattaneo and Smashing Magazine Team, thank you so much.

I would like to add “The Spirit” [the three-split poster version]
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/spirit-poster1.jpg

superb work man. i have a new set of movies to watch now :)

wow… what a nice collection of movie posters… like from tarantino´s films

I love those movie posters. One of my biggest dreams, to make my own one.. :D
Thanx for this article!
(Why don’t you make an article about DVD Covers? Because they often don’t look so great like the movie posters…)

Wow, I love this collection !

Puhlease… I love movies and their related artworks, but kill bill as a good example of a beautiful poster? Come on!
There are quite a few that are really good though, and ranging from old to new. There may be a bit too much emphasis on the new IMO, as it’s far more inspiring to me to think of the trouble designers had to go through 20, 30 years ago to make posters that rival today’s Photoshopped stuff.

Also, try writing your posts in a word processor and running spell check prior to posting them online. “We went trought different decades of movie history” WTF is trought?

Smashing strikes again. A regurgitated list of posters for popular movies is not fresh content. Unedited, guest authored content will be the downfall of this magazine.

Movie posters are not a “forgotten art”. Poster art is highly celebrated and recognised. The author seems confused in the intro and contradicts himself, before going on to post a few good examples of iconic movie poster design, mixed in amongst some forty-odd mediocre, run of the mill, mainstream posters.

Once again, a poor show from SM.

why was the poster for the ring two with the girl sitting in the chair not included? I think thats one of the most powerful and disturbing movie posters i’ve ever seen

although it is a great poster, blestenation is not a movie but a music band.

http://www.myspace.com/blestenation
lol

Grindhouse?! Black Snake Moan’s a much better poster of that style…

I think this list should be renamed to ‘Cool posters what I like’. Posters are STILL playing the part of the informative advertising material in cinemas – with sometimes stages of teaser, main campaign etc. Would love to know where the author goes to the cinema.

Agree with logicalnot. Seven Samurai’s (B & W) poster is one of the best in terms of composition, amongst other Kurosawa’s. Nice collection

Yeah thats why the category is named ‘Monday Inspiration’!
Great inspiration as always, thank you!

Just subject Alessandro Cattaneo to some delicate caning and we can get back to business for future updates, then. >:3

That’s awesome! I had Beyond A Reasonable Doubt hanging in my studio for years, right beside my Clockwork Orange. Chris

Propper bo!

For goodness sake, these are just 50 beautiful posters, its just an inspiration for designers like me, why do some of you keep complaining that this is better, that is better,

“I honestly do not see how some of these posters made it here.”,

oh come on, the title did not say that these are ‘the best movie posters ever’, did it? Just merely inspiration.

Anyways good work SM, I loved the post!

Nice collection, some really nice stuff!

I love The Dark Knight “Why So Serious” the most.

What?! you forgot Pink Floyd The Wall!

I love the Vacancy poster. That one word jumps out at you. Zodiac design is cool too. Love the fog use.

onwired.com

Stars Wars will alway’s be a classic!

Very nice collection! (;

I can’t believe you didn’t include Scarface.

Shame on you.

The Sweeney Todd poster features the Big Ben in the window. This was removed from the original poster because the Big Ben didn’t exist at the time of Sweeney Todd.

Thanks for a great list of movie visual posters
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@ Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (1956)
I think it’s all about marketing.

Umm.. you searched through DECADES of movie history and yet boring posters for “W.” appear on this list? C’mon! There are soo many lush, beautiful, inspiring posters from the early decades of film. I realize that not everyone may agree, but I think you left out quite a few “decades” here, hitting only the obvious highlights (”Vertigo”, etc).

Not to mention you opened this article with a paragraph about how movie posters and advertising were crucial to movie’s success in the early days; yet you hardly have any early movie posters, which had to work their hardest to sell the movie to the viewer without any internet or television marketing.

dwdwd

I would love to be able to see tutorials on how to create some of the effects in these movies posters. Great collection!

A great selection as always; the only thing is Blestenation isn’t a filme, it’s a rap music group!

Almost every one would be considered modern. And almost every one is American. If you factored in posters from Japan, Europe, Eastern Europe, India etc. You would have a potentially huge, interesting and exciting series.

There was a feature like this on another site, and the most captivating example I found there was the Downhill Racer Poster

Whether you have seen some of them or not, it’s a very refreshing flash back.

Cheers Smashing!

Planet of the Apes was done by artist Tod Slater for Alamo He does amazing gig posters as well…
http://www.toddslater.net/

wow~ they are awesome!!!

Nice collection. I’d also toss ‘Run Lola Run’ (the German version of the poster, not the North American), and Blade Runner into the mix.

these collection are terrific.

love ‘the birds’ poster. can’t explain why, but i reckon its insane!

Love the collection. What about Hard Candy?

great collection guys. Some very interesting posters.

Like the list some nice posters on there i hadnt seen and shows the great art behind these

But..
Metroplis has to be on that list one of the best movie posters of all time!!

original list

thx alot

Metropolis is one of the best ever.. here’s a preview
i even dare say that Spirit is a copy of it.

Good list, some great alternative versions.

I was surprised to see that Pan’s Labyrinth wasn’t on the list, the movie has so many wicked alternative poster versions.

Stop asking for a thumbs up, it’s pathetic and only shows how desperate you are for a little attention.

These are all pretty terrible…guess you happened to pick some of the worst

I have a lovely poster for “the perfume” hanging on the wall even more beautyful than the one shown here (I think it’s the italian version)

Meh, mediocre collection of posters. Some classics are here alright, but would preferred there to be a bit more insight into foreign versions of classic american posters. See the russian blade runner poster for example.