The Original Movie Posters Blog - Art of the Movies

Selling a film to a movie studio can't be easy. Millions of pounds are at stake and Hollywood is littered with glorious failures.

How do you make the pitch even harder? Propose something that has never been achieved before. Require technology and techniques that don't yet exist. Fill your film with imaginary worlds, astonishing space battles and strange creatures and droids. 

But then, to give yourself a chance, make sure you have an amazing concept artist. One like Ralph McQuarrie...

In these unsettled times it is hard to know when many will feel safe enough to amble around a museum or art gallery, yet alone travel Internationally to sample another culture.

World over, cultural institutions are working hard to adapt and to present their story in new ‘no contact’ ways.

A fantastic example that pre-dates our Covid-19 world is the amazing Hollywood Art Museum, packed full of Star Wars and movie poster goodies!

This year, prolific graphic designer Bill Gold would have been 99 years old. 

We will cover his work in more detail in a later blog post, but, as today marks the third anniversary of his passing, here are a few of our favourite Bill Gold designed posters and a wonderful short film from CBS...

You are mesmerised by a dynamic movie poster from the 1960's. A rugged and earnest hero is in peril as an army of toy soldier figures swarm against an exploding background.

The chances are, you are looking at a movie poster by the legendary Frank McCarthy.

In a posting to our 'The Artist' series, we take a look at this artist's amazing body of movie poster work...

Starting in 2001 with “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (released in the U.S. as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”) Warner Brothers transported us to fantastical places, faithfully recreating the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling – and what about that movie poster!!!

As the second film came to fruition and posters for “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” began to appear, something had changed…

Caught up with Breaking Bad? Giggled your way through every Adam Sandler film on Netflix and watched every episode of Friends (twice)?

If so, it’s time for some ‘lock-down’ culture, movie poster style!

Asked for our favourite movie posters, one of the first on the list has to be the UK ‘Style C’ Quad for the original Star Wars film. It captures the action and adventure of the movie like no other poster.

We were delighted to come across a fantastic documentary by Convex Films focused on the legendary artist responsible for the poster, Mr. Tom Chantrell...

When an artist / illustrator / designer has had such a major influence on twentieth century culture, it is hard to know where to start...

Just a few highlights of the extraordinary work of movie poster legend Mr. John Alvin...

In December, continuing their long-standing collaboration, Bonhams Auctioneers and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) held their “TCM Presents … 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year” auction.

In this unusually named auction there were a few stand out pieces for the movie poster enthusiast and they all came from the personal collection of movie poster legend Tom Jung...

Following a couple of decades where the photographic movie poster has reigned unchallenged, the illustrated movie poster is finally on the march.

Movie studios and agencies have taken note of the Alternative Movie Poster movement and some familiar names from that world are now producing key art for blockbuster movies.

In this new blog series however, we’ll be focusing on the unofficial posters, picking out some of our favourites and highlighting the amazing illustrators behind them.

First up, two posters each from Paul Mann, Tony Stella and friend of the blog, Rich Davies…

In the 2014 book “The Art of Robert E. McGinnis”, the artist states “Painting is addictive. There is never enough time, never enough satisfaction … Nevertheless, painting is a good friend and I’m fortunate to be blissfully under its spell.”

That probably explains why, in a career now well into its eighth decade, one of the most successful commercial illustrators of the twentieth century is still producing stunning works of art.

In this blog post we pull together about six month’s research to try and show all of the movie posters of this phenomenal artist and illustrator...

Over recent weeks, one movie poster (for Tarantino's 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood') has attracted more attention than any other.

The question everyone has been asking us? “Who illustrated that?”. The answer? "Mr Steven Chorney".

We reached out to him and were blown away when he agreed to have a chat.

We've packed the post with his amazing artwork. Enjoy!