25 powerful typographic movie posters

Default avatar.
July 04, 2013
25 powerful typographic movie posters.

In 2011, the movie industry made a whopping $87 billion worldwide. With that much cash up for grabs, film studios and corner-office execs are all clamoring for their piece of the pie; and that means branding and marketing a given release is anything but child’s play. It’s interesting, then, that one approach to attracting film-goers has stood the test of time: the typographic movie poster.

Artwork with typographic elements combines the best of both worlds — namely, eye-catching imagery and ultimate readability. There’s a certain strength in well-done lettering on a poster that attracts and keeps an audience’s attention, potentially setting a mood or tone for a lasting impression. After all, a picture may paint a thousand words, but a picture made of well-placed words? That picture speaks volumes.

Dating back to as early as the 1960s and 70s — with films such as West Side Story and Taxi Driver — all the way to present day with the Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty, typographic movie posters are clearly deemed effective by movie marketing masterminds. The following compilation represents 30 posters that are both impressive and inspiring; most were created by the film houses themselves, but a few are from creative minds that envisioned what could have been if typography had been used as the vehicle of choice. Enjoy!

And if you’re in the United States, happy 4th of July!

Taxi Driver

Burn After Reading

The Godfather

Zero Dark Thirty

I’m Still Here

West Side Story

The Words

Bully

Big Fish

The Departed

All That Jazz

Skyfall

Invasion

42

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Blindness

Detour

Beautiful Losers

Salt

Gangs of New York

Beastly

The Social Network

Dancer in the Dark

Terms and Conditions May Apply

Sex and the City

Which poster is your favorite? Do you know of others that could have made the list? Let us know in the comments.

Stacey Kole

Stacey Kole is a freelance writer and former magazine editor. When she‚Äôs not crafting copy or chasing after her two little boys, Stacey can be found drinking coffee, tea, or anything else with caffeine. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.

Read Next

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s …

10+ Best Tools & Resources for Web Designers and Agencies (2023 updated)

Having the ability to envision a tastefully designed website (i.e., the role creativity plays) is important. But being …

20 Best New Websites, May 2023

This month, there are tons of great new agency websites to get excited about. 3D animated prisms are a popular theme, a…

How to Find the Right White Label Website Builder for Your Agency

Web design agencies face a lot of obstacles in closing the deal with new clients. One of the most common ones is the ar…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, May 2023

There are hundreds of new tools for designers and developers released each month. We sift through them all to bring you…

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2023

All three of the website design trends here mimic something bigger going on in the tech space, from a desire to have mo…

10 Best AI Tools for Web Designers (2023)

It’s time to stop worrying if AI is going to take your job and instead start using AI to expand the services you can of…

10 Best Marketing Agency Websites (Examples, Inspo, and Templates!)

Marketers are skilled in developing strategies, producing visual assets, writing text with high impact, and optimizing …

15 Best New Fonts, April 2023

Fonts are a designer’s best friend. They add personality to our designs and enable fine typography to elevate the quali…

20 Best New Websites, April 2023

In April’s edition, there’s a whole heap of large-scale, and even full-screen, video. Drone footage is back with a veng…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, April 2023

The AI revolution is having a huge impact on the types of products that are hitting the market, with almost every app b…

3 Essential Design Trends, March 2023

One thing that we often think about design trends is that they are probably good to make a list. That’s not always true…