Althouse: The 100 Greatest Movie Posters.

June 19, 2008

The 100 Greatest Movie Posters.

No one is likely to agree that these are the 100 greatest movie posters, in the proper order, but there are lots of cool movie posters here.

I would have included this.

17 comments:

ricpic said...: Most of these posters are innocuous in the extreme. Two are not: Anatomy Of A Murder and Vertigo. They are both the work of Saul Bass, arguably the greatest graphic designer evah. Interesting that his very best poster - The Man With The Golden Arm - is not included in this list. The list maker is clueless.; 6/19/08, 7:49 PM
kjbe said...: Is it the trees?; 6/19/08, 8:02 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Yes, Saul Bass. It's not widely known that he also did title sequences, too....

"Seconds"

Holy Jesus, what a scary movie; 6/19/08, 8:17 PM
Paddy O said...: Methinks he was too easily enticed by the erotic. Definitely overrepresented. Some of those fit, but certainly not all, and maybe a good majority.

Big Fish is absolutely a great choice, and a very interesting movie.

I'm absolutely surprised there's no mention of maybe the most iconic movie poster of my generation.; 6/19/08, 8:26 PM
Unknown said...: As someone whose home is largely decorated with movie posters, I must agree with ricpic. Vertigo is in our front hallway along with this, which is hard to see at the link, and this, without the "MovieGoods" logo. That Italian Rashomon poster is probably my favorite movie poster of all time.; 6/19/08, 8:37 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Bethany is me. Didn't realize I was still logged in to that little used email account.; 6/19/08, 8:39 PM
Meade said...: The answer to which is greatest, my friend, is Gone with the Wind.; 6/19/08, 8:43 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/19/08, 8:53 PM
MadisonMan said...: I like the Young Frankenstein poster.; 6/19/08, 9:34 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: I like the Total Eclipse poster with Leodnardo DeWhatshisface.; 6/19/08, 11:46 PM
Anonymous said...: These lists are always so lame. Greatest albums, greatest movies, greatest lists of all time greatest....

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now Redux; 6/20/08, 12:27 AM
blake said...: I think it's good work but greatest?

I think the author is conflating opinion of the movies with the quality of the posters.

Can Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Descent be the only cheesy B/horror movies with a good poster?

I do think the former is fairly iconic, and also agree with the selection of Jaws, Metropolis (especially!), Lolita, Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist. Also, I dig the Rocketeer poster, possibly revealing a weakness for art deco.

And given that most movies have, oh, I don't know, dozens of movie posters made for them--many lost to antiquity--is it reasonable to assume that the person compiling any such list has viewed even a significant fraction?

Like, say, posters from Ghana. My local theater plays a ton of Indian movies, some of which have just striking posters.

Or low budget features that depend entirely on posters to lure victims in, with no intention of paying off? I don't know if it was contemporary, but I've seen a really cool "Glen or Glenda?" poster.

Or, how about the posters for the pseudo-porn of the '50s, which had to convince you that it was gonna show you something, or the ones of the '70s, which had to convince you it was going to show you something, y'know, vaguely aesthetic?

(If you can't guess, I'm just grousing for fun.); 6/20/08, 4:13 AM
knox said...: Where's "Bullit" ? And the "Descent" image is a rip off of "Silence of the Lambs."

Methinks he was too easily enticed by the erotic

Methinks you're right.

Althouse, didn't you have a post once about how movie posters nowadays are just a bunch of faces? You ought to link to it, it was pretty funny if I remember correctly. And I'd like to add, not only are so many of them just faces, but badly, badly photoshopped faces.; 6/20/08, 8:38 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Knoxwhirled... it sounds like something I'd say, but I can't find it.; 6/20/08, 11:34 AM
Gretchen said...: What about "Shaft", "North By Northwest", "Citizen Kane" and "The Third Man"? All great posters. As for more modern ones, I like "A Room With a View", "The Remains of the Day"- the Merchant/Ivory look.

And definitely "Gone With the Wind". Very iconic.; 6/20/08, 2:47 PM
Coast-bound said...: Surprised at omission of The Endless Summer poster, which was so evocative of its time.; 6/21/08, 10:50 AM
Paul Brinkley said...: A few I liked:

Vacation, European Vacation - both Boris Vallejo pieces.
http://us.imdb.com/media/rm1971756800/tt0085995
http://us.imdb.com/media/rm2113576192/tt0089670

Last Crusade
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/posters

Face/Off
http://us.imdb.com/media/rm1517392640/tt0119094; 6/23/08, 8:07 AM