While the year had its fair share of bad movie posters, 2019 showcased more ingenuity than mediocrity on its print campaigns. The posters for this year exhibited a lot of creativity, originality and novelty on crafting effective campaigns for their movies.
The best movie posters for the year range from tributes of early posters of old Hollywood to the symbolic representations of their movies. And some simply displayed the most iconic parts of their films.
This list will highlight the best of 2019 posters for movies officially released this year. Here are the ten best of the year.
Good Boys
The best way to market a raunchy comedy about three middle-schoolers going through wacky, R-rated hijinks is to pinpoint their age limit — or height limit in this case.
Just a simple look in the eyes of Jacob Tremblay and company looking over the height limit measurement is a neat idea to convey the irony of the “good boys”. The vandalism over the Good Boys title and the tagline is also a cleverly added touch. Though, we do think the large R-rating label seems too obvious.
Doctor Sleep
Being a more horror-centered follow-up to The Shining, posters for Doctor Sleep should evoke a similar creepy vibe in the same vein as the Stanley Kubrick iconic masterpiece.
While the first one effectively showed an older Danny Torrance looking over his troubled younger trike-riding self, the next posters presented a disturbed Danny still appearing to be trapped over his experience in the Overlook Hotel. This one showing the facial cracks of Ewan McGregor’s Danny Torrance, with the imprinted word “REDRUM” is hauntingly genius.
Honey Boy
The two illustrated posters for the Shia LaBeouf’s loose biopic project Honey Boy showed the prepubescent and adolescent sides of Otis Lort.
Each had their taste of eccentricity yet allegory to LaBeouf’s life experiences. While the bright-orange poster illustrating a young Otis Lort upside-down and in clown makeup is excellent, the one that suddenly stands out is the one about his adolescent self, depicted as a lifeless marionette. The context behind that illustration will be very apparent once viewing this drama.
Ad Astra
The Latin word Ad Astra means “to the stars." So, it would be fitting to depict Brad Pitt’s exploration to the stars as deeply mind-bending yet evocatively immersive.
The distorted image of Brad Pitt floating in the dark void of space is an eye-catching one as it immediately teases the stakes of his space travel (or of the movie’s space travel concept as a whole).
The tagline “The Answers We Seek Are Just Outside Our Reach” adds to the intrigue.
Queen & Slim
There is a lot of coolness portrayed in this movie poster for a Bonnie & Clyde-esque chase movie with relevant themes of racism in present-day America.
First of all, the black-and-white framework to show a cool Daniel Kaluuya and a stylish Jodie Turner-Smith with car shop in the background is presented with the flair of a fashion catalogue and the aesthetics of a thought-provoking ad campaign. And second is the attention-getting yellow-tinted Futura font to display the title. Simply cool.
Parasite
One of the most talked-about movies of the year deserves a remarkable poster conveying its subtle themes, a Bong Joon Ho staple. And what it brought was an odd yet terrific US poster with layers of hidden details.
The individual bars covering each of the character’s eyes easily placed them in the groups the movie portrays. The lying lifeless body, the beach ball, the tipi reflecting on the glass and the painted foliage on the right side just add mystery and intrigue.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
As a love letter to old Hollywood in the ’60s, why not pay homage from its poster work as well?
Quentin Tarantino surely seized that creative opportunity when he commissioned two brilliant fake posters for Rick Dalton’s Italian Westerns. Yet the highlight of these illustrated posters is the main one used to promote the movie, a tribute to Drew Struzan aesthetics. With the floating heads and the placement of the movie’s notable scenes is enough to relive ’60s Hollywood filmmaking nostalgia.
One Child Nation
One Child Nation is a gripping, engrossing documentary that tackles the subject of China’s one-child policy that spanned decades, from 1979 to 2015. Directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, both born during the policy, the film has garnered near-perfect reviews, earning an impressive 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. The poster is every bit as captivating as the film itself.
Joker
Joker is arguably the most talked-about movie of 2019. Despite its polarized reception, audiences cannot stop thinking of how thought-provoking and unique its take is on the notorious Clown Prince of crime.
The marketing laid out everything one needs to know: world-class acting prowess Joaquin Phoenix stepping into the shoes of an iconic villain. Though the poster showing the famous staircase dance scene is what cemented the level of quality this movie has, it was the first teaser poster that set the tone and contributed to the overall hype.
Us
The title of “best movie poster” almost always goes to a horror movie. 2019 is no exception, as the official poster of Jordan Peele’s Us is the best of the bunch this year.
Lupita Nyong’o’s Red unmasking herself is a particular haunting image, with the wide-eyed stare she gives and the haunting visual of a person wearing the mask of her own face. For a movie about the haunting repercussions of duality, this easily cemented the spine-tingling factor and the hidden subtext of the year’s best slasher movie.
Director Jordan Peele hit double whammy on this one with truly horrifying movie posters for his cerebral horror movies.
