The 20 best film posters of 2020

Although cir­cum­stances pre­vent­ed many of us from vis­it­ing movie the­atres and perus­ing the posters on dis­play this year, plen­ty of clever illus­tra­tors and design­ers have still been beaver­ing away to pro­duce some out­stand­ing art­work. Here are 20 posters that caught our eye – and be sure to tweet us your favourites @LWLies.

Mim­ic­k­ing the slick dis­play of an Insta­gram Live broad­cast, the poster for Eugene Kotlyarenko’s black com­e­dy about a stream­er dri­ven to extreme mea­sures in his nev­er-end­ing quest for views is a clever, colour­ful offer­ing that puts Joe Keery front and cen­tre. Poster quotes can usu­al­ly look a lit­tle shoe­horned in too, but posi­tion­ing them as com­ments is a smart move that means they aren’t too dis­tract­ing. Good stuff!

Design by P+A

A classy poster for a classy movie – but there’s some­thing just a lit­tle off about the scene pre­sent­ed on the advert for Sean Durkin’s sopho­more fea­ture. It could be the cracked mir­ror, the con­trast in expres­sions between stars Jude Law and Car­rie Coon, or even the kern­ing on the type­face (Alex­on RR Light Reg­u­lar, font fans); but what­ev­er the rea­son, this sub­tle design sets the stage for the uneasy ten­sion at the heart of this fam­i­ly drama.

Design by Bran­don Schaefer

Some­times a poster just does exact­ly what it says on the tin, and we’re grate­ful for it. The bold yel­low back­ground and cap­i­tal let­ter­ing give view­ers a fair­ly good idea of what they’ve get­ting into with Kris­ten Johnson’s excel­lent doc­u­men­tary, but it’s the skull-and-cross­bones motif using a pho­to of a very sur­prised-look­ing Dick John­son which real­ly sells the wit at the heart of the film.

Design by BLT Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, LLC

Evie, who plays the tit­u­lar role in Kel­ly Reichardt’s First Cow, is the right­ful star of A24’s mar­ket­ing cam­paign. A sur­pris­ing­ly con­tem­po­rary sans serif font in a gold­en yel­low sets out the film’s stall; it’s fun and strik­ing, but also strange­ly apt for this off­beat (but ulti­mate­ly delight­ful) sto­ry of mis­fits and moo­ing in America’s infancy.

Design by The Boland Design Company

Ben­jamin Ree’s doc­u­men­tary about an artist who forms a friend­ship with a man who stole her work has the premise of a Hol­ly­wood movie, but you know what they say: the truth is often stranger than fic­tion. Barbo­ra Kysilko­va has gone on to paint Karl Bertil-Nordland’s por­trait, which is what we see in this imag­i­na­tive poster, with the man him­self star­ing at his own image.

Design by Neil Keller­house, Key Art by Anna Park

Under­stand­ably here at Lit­tle White Lies, we’re very fond of an illus­trat­ed poster, and this effort by Anna Park for David Fincher’s Mank is no excep­tion. Inspired by a scene late in the film, it shows Gary Old­man as Her­man Mankiewicz at a din­ner thrown by William Ran­dolph Hearst, and evokes the spir­it of this icon­ic shot from Cit­i­zen Kane.

Design by GRAVILLIS

For a stream­ing ser­vice, Netflix’s poster game is pret­ty damn good, and this sim­ple but effec­tive teas­er for Spike Lee’s Viet­nam dra­ma Da 5 Bloods is no excep­tion. Five tears rep­re­sent the sol­diers of the 1^st Infantry Divi­sion the film focus­es on: Paul, Otis, Eddie, Melvin and Nor­man, while the over­all style mim­ics the clas­sic pro­pa­gan­da posters of the peri­od. We loved the GRAV­IL­LIS design for Black­Kklans­man, and it’s clear­ly a part­ner­ship that’s work­ing well.

Design by Akiko Stehrenberger

Akiko Stehren­berg­er is one of the best poster artists work­ing today, and this odd­ball illus­tra­tion for Char­lie Kaufman’s psy­chodra­ma I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things is anoth­er gold star effort, show­ing Jessie Buckley’s char­ac­ter obscured by snow­fall. Of course it gives absolute­ly noth­ing of the film away, and there’s even some­thing a lit­tle odd about the use of ital­ics and cap­i­tals in the styling of the title and cred­its – but that’s noth­ing com­pared to how strange things get with­in the film itself. We also love Mid­night Marauder’s design for the film, on a com­pli­men­ta­ry theme.

Design by B O N D

David Lowery’s forth­com­ing his­toric fan­ta­sy set with­in the leg­endary court of King Arthur was a vic­tim of the pan­dem­ic, so we’re not clear when it will pre­mière yet, but this one-sheet has been liv­ing rent-free in our minds since it first debuted in the spring. Regal red, bold goth­ic text, an over­all tarot card vibe – it’s a winner.

Design by GRAVILLIS

We can’t wait to see Nia DaCosta’s sequel to Bernard Rose’s clas­sic 1992 slash­er, but for now we’ll have to make do with its suit­ably creepy poster, show­ing the Candyman’s icon­ic hook drop­ping in hon­ey, with a tiny bee sit­ting atop it. Such is the pow­er of the Can­dy­man mythos, you don’t need to know any­thing else. We’re sure the film will get a whole host of mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als for its sum­mer 2021 release, and we can’t wait to see what the team come up with.

Design by Andrew Bannister

Cur­zon are strong play­ers when it comes to the poster game, and their quad for Shirley’s UK release is no excep­tion. Rem­i­nis­cent of the excel­lent art for Park Chan-wook’s Stok­er, Andrew Bannister’s design has a sort of illus­trat­ed découpage vibe (like the flo­ral wall­pa­pers pop­u­lar through­out the 1950s) which ties into the film’s use of nature sym­bol­ism quite nice­ly. The green and cream colour palette is also very much seen in the film, so this sets the tone in a way a lot of posters often don’t seem to man­age. Plus, it pass­es the great poster test: we’d absolute­ly have this framed on our wall.

Design by Plakiat

Released mid-pan­dem­ic to gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive reviews, Bran­don Trost’s direc­to­r­i­al debut sees Seth Rogen play an East­ern Euro­pean Jew­ish immi­grant who is acci­den­tal­ly pre­served in a vat of pick­les in 1919, and wakes up in 2020. Maks Beres­ki (known as Plaki­at) is iden­ti­fi­able as an artist by his sold, min­i­mal­ist designs, and this one is no excep­tion. The pick­le-brine colour­ing and use of Hebrew lan­guage set it apart from your stan­dard Seth Rogen com­e­dy posters; in fact, it looks more like the cov­er for a dev­as­tat­ing Russ­ian dra­mat­ic nov­el than a film, and that’s no bad thing.

Design by Empire Design

One of the break­out hits of the year, Rose Glass’s Saint Maud is full of arrest­ing images, so it makes sense the art­work for the film would fol­low suit. There are quite a few excel­lent posters out there, but Empire’s flame design is our favourite, posi­tion­ing Morfy­dd Clarke’s devout nurse among an inferno.

Design by Tom Hodge 

Adapt­ing Love­craft is a dif­fi­cult chal­lenge, but Richard Stan­ley rose to it in 2020 with his take on the extra ter­res­tri­al body hor­ror Colour Out of Space. This pur­ple night­mare only touch­es at some of the film’s grotesque imagery, but most impor­tant of all is that includes the lla­mas which play a minor but piv­otal role in the plot.

Design by Art Machine

Nod­ding to the pulp romances you can pick up on the shelves of any good char­i­ty shop or air­port book­store and the bold mar­ket­ing for Paul Verhoevan’s Show­girls is this sul­try design from Art Machine. Tak­ing cues from make-up artist Vla­da Hag­ger­ty it doesn’t give much away, which is apt con­sid­er­ing how much the film relies on wrong-foot­ing viewers.

Design by Alphaville

One of the most wild (and pre­scient) films of the year, if you haven’t seen Kle­ber Men­donça Fil­ho and Juliano Dor­nelles’ Baca­rau yet, rem­e­dy that imme­di­ate­ly. Alphaville’s colour­ful illus­trat­ed poster nods to the clas­sic design for Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright, and man­ages to make Udo Kier look men­ac­ing even in a dain­ty water­colour style.

Design by MOCEAN

Gar­ret Bradley’s heart wrench­ing film takes one sto­ry from the Amer­i­can prison sys­tem to shine a spot­light on how sys­tem­at­ic racism and injus­tice are alive and well today. The grainy cell phane image of Fox Rich and her hus­band Rob kiss­ing is one of the film’s most endur­ing, remind­ing us that at the heart of every­thing is a cou­ple who love each oth­er despite their huge­ly unfair cir­cum­stances. Bold and impact­ful, it’s a poster that puts its sub­jects front and cen­tre, as it undoubt­ed­ly should.

Designed in-house

Delayed from an Octo­ber release, Chloé Zhao’s Nomad­land is one of the best films of the year, and this poster (which maybe owes some­thing to Ray & Liz) speaks to its under­stat­ed beau­ty. No hyper­bol­ic quotes from crit­ics, no spe­cial effects – just Frances McDor­mand in her night­ie with a cup of cof­fee, while her pants dry on the wash­ing line. You know your film is some­thing spe­cial when this is the image that sells it.

Design by La Boca

Those clever folks at Neon and Cur­zon real­ly pulled out all the stops on the Par­a­site mar­ket­ing cam­paign, but this bright, Esch­er-esque design is our favourite, pri­mar­i­ly because of its cheeky East­er egg in the form of an Oscar lurk­ing under the cof­fee table. It was prophet­ic though; the film did indeed win a slew of Acad­e­my Awards, and right­ful rank­ing as one of the best releas­es of the year.

Design by the Ross Brothers

Blend­ing fic­tion and real­i­ty to cre­ate a rous­ing por­trait of a New Orleans dive bar’s dying hours, the Ross Bros’ Bloody Nose, Emp­ty Pock­ets is one of the most intrigu­ing, com­fort­ing films to have come out of 2020, and it’s impos­si­ble to not mar­vel at this ful­ly-illus­trat­ed poster either, fea­tur­ing all the reg­u­lars and ran­doms who pop up to say farewell to the Roar­ing 20’s cock­tail lounge. It cap­tures a sense of the film’s chaot­ic vibe, but also its warmth, and is a lit­tle rem­i­nis­cent of anoth­er poster for a film about a bar. Excel­lent work that makes us just want to hang out with our bud­dies and sing along to the juke­box all night long.