Poll: Premiere Magazine's 25 Best Movie Posters Ever

Results of 595 votes:

1. 1.
   

   Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

    

   Designed by Dazu - The poster for 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, designed by the ad agency Dazu, is as simple and disturbing as they come. Look very closely at the death's head moth covering star Jo…
2. 2.
   

   Vertigo (1958)

    

   Designed by Saul Bass - The image that Saul Bass who also created the opening credit sequence of the film itself designed for Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo is as classic as the movie itself. Perhaps becaus…
3. 3.
   

   Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)

    

   Taking a cue from the film itself, the poster for Roman Polanski's 1968 film makes an innocent object, a baby stroller, ominous. For a film where the concept was definitely more emphasized than stars …
4. 4.
   

   Allison Hayes in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

    

   Designed by Reynolds Brown - 1958's Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman is an awful movie but the poster is memorable. Reynolds Brown, frequently employed by the studios to create horror one-sheets, designed t…
5. 5.
   

   #4

    

   Designed by Robert McGinnis - You don't need to go to great lengths to make an appealing poster when Audrey Hepburn's playing the lead. Yet the image of the actress with a figure as slight as the ciga…
6. 6.
   

   2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

    

   Designed by Mike Kaplan - Originally designed, but discarded as a less prominent image to promote the film, this poster for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey became the main focus of the adverti…
7. 7.
   

   #2

    

   Designed by Saul Bass - Mark Rothko meets the chalk outline. Artist Saul Bass (also an acclaimed title designer and visual consultant) brought poster design out of the golden age with a bold mix of th…
8. 8.
   

   Boris Karloff and Zita Johann in The Mummy (1932)

    

   Designed by Karoly Grosz - The poster for 1932's The Mummy remains an auction champ: it once sold for $453,500. P.D. Cochrane was the advertising director at Universal who commissioned the work of ill…
9. 9.
   

   Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs (1971)

    

   The shattering violence of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 Straw Dogs is disturbingly foreshadowed in this cleverly layered image. While the poster does have a closeup of one of the 1970s most famous leading men…
10. 10.
    

    Poster for 50th anniversary rerelease, 1 sheet movie poster app. 27" x 40"

     

    Designed by Erik Nitsche - The bouncy, kinetic design of 1950's All About Eve poster mirrors the movie's cocktail shaker wit. Erik Nitsche was the artist who came up with the arrow-filled image that, …
11. 11.
    

    Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell in The Seven Year Itch (1955)

     

    Designed by Saul Bass - If the designers of the poster for the 1955 Marilyn Monroe vehicle had substituted, say, Jimmy Durante for Tom Ewell on the right, do you think anyone would have noticed? No wa…
12. 12.
    

    Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)

     

    Designed by Jack Kerness - The image of Rita Hayworth in the title role of Gilda (1946) epitomizes the femme fatale. Robert Coburn took the picture and art director Jack Kerness did the rest with this…
13. 13.
    

    #25

     

    Designed by Heinz Edelmann - As the film's art director and man in charge of the advertising art, Czech graphic designer Heinz Edelmann came up with the overall brightly colored, Peter Max-esque look …
14. 14.
    

    #12

     

    Designed by S. Barret McCormick and Bob Sisk - Star power being what it is, 1933's King Kong merely needed a big ape to sell itself. Yet S. Barret McCormick and Bob Sisk did the artwork for the iconic…
15. 15.
    

    #9

     

    The shivering Tramp of 1925's The Gold Rush immediately entered the pantheon of iconic images. As with many of Chaplin's posters, it relied more on Chaplin's bowler hat, mustache and facial expression…
16. 16.
    

    Product image

     

    Designed by Alberto Vargas - Some great posters are from movies you may never have heard of -- 1933's The Sin of Nora Moran is a fairly inconsequential B picture, but its poster is an unforgettable im…
17. 17.
    

    #6

     

    The Forbidden Planet artwork (1956), with its decidedly menacing robot and definitely-not-Anne Francis damsel-in-distress, evokes and entire ethos of pulp sci-fi. The prominence of Robbie the Robot al…
18. 18.
    

    Ginger Rogers, Warner Baxter, George Brent, Bebe Daniels, Allen Jenkins, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Dick Powell, Ned Sparks, and George E. Stone in 42nd Street (1933)

     

    Designed by Hubbard G. Robinson and Joseph Tisman - The deco-ish cascade of legs for 42nd Street (1933) brings to mind skyscrapers as well as dancing feet. Hubbard G. Robinson and Joseph Tisman, who a…
19. 19.
    

    Robert Redford and Camilla Sparv in Downhill Racer (1969)

     

    Designed by Steve Frankfurt - Downhill Racer's breathtaking 1969 one-sheet is, among other things, a testimonial to just how freewheeling the '60s were — only then were the studios daring enough to ad…
20. 20.
    

    #21

     

    Designed by Adrian Gill Spear - Douglas Fairbanks never looked better than he did in this one-sheet for the 1924 swashbuckler. But as the producer of The Thief of Baghdad, Fairbanks ensured his image …
21. 21.
    

    "The Man with the Golden Arm" (Saul Bass Poster) 1955 United Artists

     

    Designed by Saul Bass - The stark simplicity of Bass's poster for 1955's The Man With the Golden Arm was perhaps the designer's most daring work. The poster for the film, which stars Frank Sinatra as …
22. 22.
    

    Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire (1942)

     

    Designed by Maurice Kallis - Maurice Kallis, who learned the craft of making posters as an assistant to Paramount art director Vincent Trotta, styled the poster for this 1942 Graham Greene potboiler a…
23. 23.
    

    #11

     

    The poster for 1953's The Hitch-Hiker blurs the line between advertisement and highway safety PSA. The Edmond O'Brien roadside nailbiter had a simple approach to selling its cheap thrills a gun, a thr…
24. 24.
    

    Peggy Cummins and John Dall in Gun Crazy (1950)

     

    The art for 1949's Gun Crazy represents cinema's obsession with the aberrant, highlighting a thrill-killing dame. The film was originally released as Deadly is the Female with a poster featuring a mor…
25. 25.
    

    #20

     

    Designed by Maurice Kallis - Maurice Kallis, who also worked on the This Gun for Hire poster, was responsible for the minimalist Sullivan's Travels poster. It emphasizes the beautiful blonde bombshell…