What were the common threads among the finest film posters of 2013? Mustaches. Sunglasses. Font that boldly monopolizes the center of the design. And plenty of pink. A great movie poster can do a great many things, but it’s most important attribute is always the reminder that there are more ways to enticingly sell a film than with famous faces. Virtually every genre (and budget level) is covered in this roster of 2013’s best, proving that great marketing in this industry is by no means exclusive to one type or size of film. And though an ethical issue had a pivotal effect on the final results, it couldn’t tarnish a collection of vastly diverse aesthetic triumphs, which helped to richly enhance the cinema-going year.
20. The Bling Ring
While its blatant, “that’s the whole point” superficiality may just underscore the fact that Sofia Coppola never found much else to explore, this sunglass-adorned poster for The Bling Ring remains a restrained eye-catcher, assigning each teenage criminal with not just a nickname, but a personal pair of status-defining shades. [Article]
19. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Mockingjay cloud wings do lean toward the obvious in this vintage-looking poster for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but of the shameless abundance of one-sheets released for this film (it must be close to four dozen by now), this proved by far the most fetching, evocative of markedly epic—and markedly male—fantasy actioners like Conan the Barbarian. [Article]
18. Only God Forgives
In this specific, intentionally eye-searing one-sheet for Only God Forgives, the film’s saturated color palette and Bangkok setting are boldly established, while the neon sign may well be advertising the fight club run by Ryan Gosling’s Julian. And don’t miss that ominous tagline tucked away in the dragon’s mouth.
17. White Reindeer
Cocaine, Christmas trees, and pristine sweaters. This is the stuff of the madly transgressive White Reindeer, and it comes together with pitch-black perfection in the dark comedy’s poster, which promises it’s far from a wonderful life, kiddies. [Article]
16. Blackfish
In eerily simple black and white, and with economy that suggests ample room for hard facts, the poster for Blackfish, complete with scratches akin to those that captured whales inflict on each other in captivity, sells the doc as precisely what it is: a horror film.
15. Lee Daniels’ The Butler
In a vast improvement over this debacle, the poster for Lee Daniels’ The Butler, not to be confused with what the film was dubbed before Harvey Weinstein and the MPAA shook hands, finally, rightfully expressed the messy sensibilities of a filmmaker who’d suddenly been put front and center. This is apt image of America, shaken up.
14. Carrie
Much to a cheeky colleague’s disappointment, this is not an offbeat poster for Sex and the City 3. But it certainly is enough to stop you cold near a city puddle if you saw it brandished on a bus, that pig’s blood creeping down Chloe Moretz’s face with the greatest of pop-horror sleaze. [Article]
13. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
Sometimes all it takes is a mustache. Granted, I am by no means the audience for Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, but I gotta respect the brand-identity audacity of this bushy poster, which is cocky, yet stays classy. In short, Ron Burgundy would love it. [Article]
12. The Kings of Summer
Occasionally a poster merely excels at perfectly encapsulating a feeling, and that’s what’s accomplished by this one-sheet for The Kings of Summer. It has to be one of the best ads out there not for a film, but for cliff diving and just relishing youth.
11. Spring Breakers
Apparently everything you need for the perfect vacation that descends into the perfect day-glo crime spree is a color-coordinated mix of the sweet and the deadly, like pink sneakers, brass knuckles, pistols, and lip balm. That this poster for Harmony Korine’s masterwork Spring Breakers does the Bling Ring one-sheet one better, and digs deeper, is more than a little telling. [Article]
10. Stoker
It’s almost too easy to shortlist this illustrated poster for Stoker, and Park Chan-wook fan boys may be a bit too quick to proclaim its brilliance. But you can’t not be sucked in by its novelty and its detail, which is rich with secrets about the violent, titular family. [Article]
9. Her
Like the trailer for the film, the poster for Her seems utterly unremarkable at first, a bit of been-there-done-that that’s easy to mock. But once you’ve witnessed Spike Jonze’s triumph, and all its heavily highlighted colors, you want nothing but this unforgettable, perhaps unintentional, Tom Selleck homage representing it.
8. You’re Next
Brilliantly turning the home-invasion thriller into a sick puzzle game recalling Clue, this blueprint-style poster for You’re Next sets the perfect tone for the film, begs the viewer to look closer, and maintains the basic shape of the masks worn by the film’s assailants. It’s also kinda like Where’s Waldo? With machetes. [Article]
7. Cutie and the Boxer
Perhaps no 2013 poster leaves you wondering what glorious treats are in store more than the one for Cutie and the Boxer, which uses its New York artist couple’s vocations to add both booming color and oddities, and flecks its imposing text with paint splatters. In another year, this could have easily topped the list.
6. World War Z
There were very few popular films to devise a poster design as starkly compelling as the one for World War Z, which emphasized the ant-like nature of the film’s zombies, and trusted that powerful image to make an impact. It worked.
5. The Canyons
Paul Schrader’s The Canyons may be little more than a headline-grabber with intriguing conceptual stages, but that takes nothing away from this incredible poster, which accesses all that the film could not: the changing state of cinema, the degradation of an industry’s epicenter, and the layers that have been peeled away after years of changed film-going practices.
4. Nebraska
A little Eraserhead, a little wistful wind breezing through the hair of a certain Oscar-bound veteran actor, and you’ve got the poster for Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, surely one of the year’s most unique film ads, which still manages to pay obvious homage to David Lynch’s unshakeable slice of nightmare cinephilia. [Article]
3. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
The poster for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is beautiful in the traditional sense, and it’s the one on this list I’d be most likely to frame and hang in my office, but the clincher is the crushing heartache captured in the face of Rooney Mara’s character, who’s about to be literally pulled away from her outlaw lover. What begins as a majestic snapshot of the heartland sticks with you as a moment of romantic devastation.
2. Oldboy
Full disclosure: This stunning studio poster for Spike Lee’s Oldboy, with its hand-drawn title from Josh Brolin, its to-the-last-detail compositional perfection, and its exceptional balance of color inclusion, had the top spot locked up for months. Then a little unsavory news item surfaced, alleging that the final design was something of a rip-off from the guy who cooked up the basic concept. So a moral dilemma ensued: Is this my favorite poster of 2013? Yes. Can I comfortably dub what may well be an artistic robbery the Best Poster of the Year? Not really. [Article]
1. Frances Ha
All that said about the Oldboy ad, I still have a deep affection for the rightfully sprightly one-sheet for Frances Ha. Capturing its dance-obsessed heroine in mid-motion, it utterly encapsulates the tone of the piece, and in substituting pink for white, it conveys Noah Baumbach’s grayscale palette while being just a touch feminine. If the Oldboy poster was my favorite one to ogle on a computer screen, this was my favorite one to see at a New York bus stop. It’s still at the bus stop two blocks from my apartment. Perhaps no one has the heart to take it down.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.