The 20 best film posters of 2017

Anoth­er year, anoth­er fine raft of movie posters. But much like High­lander, there can be only one that rules supreme. From The Beguiled to Good Time, here are 20 we’d be proud to hang on our bed­room walls. Think we’ve missed one? Let us known by tweet­ing your favourite @LWLies

It’s nev­er a good thing when the poster is bet­ter than the film. Even so, The Hitman’s Body­guard​‘s homage to The Bodyguard’s icon­ic 1992 poster – fea­tur­ing Samuel L Jack­son as Whit­ney Hous­ton and Ryan Reynolds as Kevin Cost­ner – is wor­thy of an hon­ourable men­tion here.

Sofia Coppola’s films usu­al­ly have bril­liant posters, but this one for The Beguiled might be the best yet. Choos­ing to omit Col­in Farrell’s face was a bold choice (the 1971 orig­i­nal posters had Clint East­wood front and cen­tre) and it’s a more mut­ed look than say, The Bling Ring or Marie Antoinette – except for the strik­ing, baby pink cur­sive title.

Body hor­ror film The Void actu­al­ly had a raft of bril­liant posters (that proved bet­ter than the actu­al film) but we’re big fans of this decep­tive­ly sim­plis­tic one, not least because it’s rem­i­nis­cent of the icon­ic art­work for Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange.

When in doubt, turn to the greats for some film poster inspi­ra­tion – this cre­ative riff on the Hitch­cock­ian sil­hou­ette of Ver­ti­go does jus­tice to Shyamalan’s best film in years.

Speak­ing to the film’s unique sense of won­der­ment and can­dy-coloured palette, this poster for Sean Baker’s lat­est puts young star Brook­lynn Kim­ber­ly Prince front and cen­tre. In clash­ing shades of blue and pink, it shouldn’t work – but by Jove, it real­ly does – the rain­bow in the midground real­ly ties it all together.

Evoca­tive and hard to ignore, the poster for I Am Not Your Negro does jus­tice to James Baldwin’s arrest­ing work and incred­i­ble legacy.

Eschew­ing the trend for super­hero movie posters that cram as much into a frame as pos­si­ble, this teas­er for Logan stripped things back, and in the process, cre­at­ed a pow­er­ful image that encap­su­lat­ed every­thing which made the movie such a gem.

A homage to Harold Lloyd’s 1918 film Two-Gun Gussie isn’t what you’d expect to see in a John Wick 2 poster, but it’s exact­ly what you’d want. Giv­ing a nod the film’s wide-rang­ing influ­ences as well as imply­ing some badassery for the next John Wick out­ing, it’s a tri­umph for the Keanu kung-fu caper.

Sim­ple, effec­tive, and it gives very lit­tle away – this poster for It Comes at Night is a mas­ter­class in hor­ror film pro­mo, from the white dog con­trast­ing against the dark­ness to the stag­gered font. Who knew Times New Roman could be so creepy?

Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos is no stranger to a decent film poster or two, and this effort for The Killing of a Sacred Deer marks anoth­er tri­umph, giv­ing away very lit­tle about the film’s har­row­ing plot, and some­how man­ag­ing to make cur­tains look unnerving.

Stylised like a pulp fic­tion thriller from the 80s, this neon dream for the Safdie Broth­ers’ crime thriller is a sur­re­al delight. Or maybe there’s just some­thing inher­ent­ly amus­ing about a tee­ny tiny Robert Pat­tin­son. Either way, we like it.

It might have caused a stir at Cannes, but Netflix’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bong Joon Ho cer­tain­ly sold us with its cre­ative poster design, which sees young Mija walk­ing her beloved pet, on the shoul­ders of whom the world’s future rests.

The dev­il works hard, but Takashi Miike works hard­er – as the poster states, Blade of the Immor­tal is his 100^th film (he’s only 57, by the way) and what a poster it is. The ink-like design is a nice nod towards the film’s ori­gins in Hiroa­ki Samura’s icon­ic manga.

There’s so much to love about this bold teas­er poster for Edgar Wright’s high-stakes crime dra­ma, and as is usu­al­ly the case with Wright, details are impor­tant – from the sound­wave burst­ing out of the gun’s bar­rel to the blood splat­ter on the rear sight.

We’d expect noth­ing less than a stun­ning poster from the vision­ary Guiller­mo del Toro, and this effort for The Shape of Water doesn’t dis­ap­point. The dreamy art nou­veau-style illus­tra­tion is as roman­tic and mys­te­ri­ous as the film itself, a beau­ti­ful ren­der­ing of the film’s fairy­tale qual­i­ty on paper.

Framed liked a stained glass win­dow in a nod to the Catholic school set­ting, the poster for Lady Bird is a pleas­ing­ly under­stat­ed design that puts star Saoirse Ronan front and cen­tre. It’s per­haps a bit more som­bre than the film itself, but the pops of colour inject some youth.

Julia Ducournau’s debut fea­ture fea­tur­ing col­lege and can­ni­bal­ism was one of the high­lights of the year and had a strik­ing poster to match, hint­ing at Justine’s blood­lust with more eas­i­ly digestible imagery.

Although she slight­ly resem­bles Mon­key Jesus, Jen­nifer Lawrence cuts quite the fig­ure as she lit­er­al­ly bears her heart in the poster for moth­er!. The film divid­ed audi­ences, but it’s hard to deny the bril­liance of this poster (and its Javier Bar­dem coun­ter­part) which set the tone for one of the year’s most mind-bend­ing movies.

Park Chan-wook’s films tend to have pret­ty great art­work (see Stok­er and Old­boy) but this intri­cate effort for The Hand­maid­en is some­thing else. The tapes­try design takes inspi­ra­tion from clas­sic Kore­an art, evok­ing the film’s sump­tu­ous set­ting, whilst giv­ing a glimpse of key moments with­in the sto­ry. It’s beau­ti­ful in its own right, and def­i­nite­ly some­thing we wouldn’t mind hang­ing above the mantelpiece.

Sim­ple, haunt­ing, and with one of the best taglines in mod­ern mem­o­ry, the poster for Jor­dan Peele’s direc­to­r­i­al debut will go down in movie poster his­to­ry as one of the greats. A slick, under­stat­ed black and white pro­duc­tion that looks like noth­ing else we’ve seen this year, the fear in Daniel Kaluuya’s eyes stays with you – much like Shel­ley Duvall’s expres­sion in the icon­ic poster for The Shin­ing.