The 20 best film posters of 2021

It’s been anoth­er strange and uncer­tain year for cin­e­ma, but thank­ful­ly there have been plen­ty of gor­geous posters for us to admire. Here are just a few of our favourites – tweet us @LWLies with your own stand-out posters from this year.

Sim­plic­i­ty is under­rat­ed in art direc­tion – noth­ing proves this more than the teas­er poster for Michael Sarnoski’s Pig, which fea­tures only the hairy porcine back of its tit­u­lar char­ac­ter, and a tiny sym­bol in lieu of a title. Fit­ting for a film that’s liable to sur­prise you at every turn.

Cre­at­ed by Empire Design

Ryû­suke Ham­aguchi has had a busy year with his oth­er film, Dri­ve My Car, play­ing at Cannes and around the world to crit­i­cal acclaim, but of his two 2021 projects, Wheel of For­tune and Fan­ta­sy has the more ele­gant poster design. The sub­tle water­colour depict­ing a key scene is charm­ing, and it’s par­tic­u­lar­ly niced to see the film’s Japan­ese title includ­ed on this inter­na­tion­al poster.

Paint­ing by Eliz­a­beth Yoo

An anthol­o­gy film with con­tri­bu­tions from Jafar Pani­hi, Antho­ny Chen, Malik Vit­thal, Lau­ra Poitras, Domin­ga Sotomay­or, David Low­ery and Apichat­pong Weerasethakul, The Year of the Ever­last­ing Storm is one of the (many) pan­dem­ic-adje­cent films we’ve seen trick­le in through 2021. Anoth­er min­i­mal mas­ter­stroke, this strik­ing poster takes that title to heart, with a nod to Weerasethakul’s Night Colonies in the small insect we can see hang­ing out on the light­en­ing bolt.

Jeymes Samuel’s revi­sion­ist west­ern is bold, brash and high­ly enter­tain­ing; this Grav­il­lis poster fol­lows suit. With its A‑Listers cast in shad­ow there’s a very old school Mag­nif­i­cent 7 vibe going on, but the blue and yel­low accents give it that play­ful edge we’ve come to expect from Samuel.

Cre­at­ed by Grav­il­lis

I’ve been doing this poster round-up for the past four years at LWLies, and I’ve start­ed to notice that the quick­est way to my heart is through a good illus­trat­ed poster. No one knows how to do that quite like Wes Ander­son, and the effort for his lat­est, The French Dis­patch, is par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing. Inspired by the illus­trat­ed cov­ers of New York­er mag­a­zine, it’s whim­si­cal and intri­cate – we’d expect no less from Wes.

Cre­at­ed by Javi Aznarez

Theo Anthony’s explo­ration of sur­veil­lance cul­ture and the bias in record­ed images is a damn­ing look at how we’re being failed by the very mea­sures pur­port­ed­ly meant to pro­tect us, and this image of the human eye speaks to that fallibility.

Although their fourth movie was delayed from a Sep­tem­ber 2021 release until Feb­ru­ary 2022, the Jack­ass boys have at least gift­ed us with some posters and a trail­er to tide us over before ​‘Jack­ass For­ev­er’ can­non­balls into cin­e­mas. This phal­lic effort, pay­ing homage to the Looney Toons-esque can­non stunt we’ve come to know and love, is a highlight.

Cre­at­ed by BLT Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

While we weren’t the biggest fans of Spencer at LWLies, there’s no deny­ing that Empire Design put togeth­er a pret­ty spec­tac­u­lar poster for it. Show­ing Kris­ten Stew­art as Princess Di cow­er­ing in a spec­tac­u­lar white ball­go­wn with the creep­ing dark­ness a visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of her iso­la­tion, it’s a strik­ing, appro­pri­ate­ly regal intro­duc­tion to the doomed princess.

Cre­at­ed by Empire Design

There’s no ques­tion that Lana Wachowski’s update to the Matrix fran­chise is one of the most antic­i­pat­ed films of the year, and this can­ny design shows that when you’ve got a prop­er­ty this icon­ic, there’s no need to over­think things. Strik­ing and sim­ple, it’s intrigu­ing for any­one unfa­mil­iar with the series, and a fun lit­tle throw­back for fans.

Cre­at­ed by B O N D

Annette divid­ed audi­ences this year, with some declar­ing it a tri­umph and oth­ers com­plete­ly unmoved by Leos Carax’s oper­at­ic extrav­a­gan­za. Either way, the poster is cer­tain­ly beguil­ing, evok­ing the film’s sense of dra­ma and the dark romance at its core. Though, if I’m hon­est, Adam Dri­ver looks like Cap­tain Had­dock here.

Cre­at­ed by RYSK Stu­dio

Quite pos­si­bly on the road to Oscar glo­ry, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s ani­mat­ed doc­u­men­tary about a refugee who fled Afghanistan for Den­mark as a child has res­onat­ed with audi­ences all around the world. This beau­ti­ful poster shows off many of the detailed char­ac­ters with­in the film.

Illus­tra­tions by Mikkel Som­mer and Ken­neth Ladekjaer

I won’t pre­tend that I can explain Apichat­pong Wheersaul’s Memo­ria to you, but I was rather tak­en with this black and white poster, which seems to blend wak­ing real­i­ty and the dream world. Fit­ting for a film about a woman seek­ing the root of a mys­te­ri­ous sound against the breath-tak­ing beau­ty of Colombia.

Anoth­er exam­ple of an excel­lent illus­trat­ed poster, this one sheet for Lance Oppenheim’s doc­u­men­tary about an upscale Florid­i­an retire­ment com­mu­ni­ty cap­tures the per­son­al­i­ty of its sub­jects, but also looks a lit­tle like some­thing a retiree might cre­ate in an arts and crafts session.

When your film is lit­er­al­ly about a sex tape, it’s a lit­tle tricky to dream up a poster design that won’t have scan­dalised par­ents protest­ing at the mul­ti­plex, so props to the clever folks who came up with this cheeky take on Radu Jude’s Berli­nale win­ner Bad Luck Bang­ing or Loony Porn. Play but­ton or woman’s nether regions? You decide!

Emma Seligman’s Shi­va Baby is one of the most mem­o­rable debuts of the year, and the poster cer­tain­ly match­es, giv­ing star Rachael Sen­nott a bagel and cream cheese gown fit for a princess. Giv­en the role the food­stuffs plays in a piv­otal scene, it’s par­tic­u­lar­ly appropriate.

Cre­at­ed by High Coun­cil

Rid­ley Scott’s films aren’t usu­al­ly known for their poster design, so this Legion effort for The Last Duel is quite refresh­ing. It’s sim­ple but sophis­ti­cat­ed, posi­tion­ing Jodie Com­er between the swords of Matt Damon and Adam Dri­ver, who do bat­tle after she accus­es the lat­ter of rape. Very Saul Bass.

Cre­at­ed by Legion Cre­ative

Hit­ting cin­e­mas next sum­mer, Panah Panahi’s Hit the Road should def­i­nite­ly be on your ​‘Must See’ list, and this dreamy illus­trat­ed poster is just one rea­son why. Rem­i­nis­cent of The Lit­tle Prince, it gives pre­cious lit­tle of what you can expect from this off­beat road trip movie – and that’s how we like it.

In strik­ing neons which mim­ic the vivid colour palette of the film, this por­trait of Agathe Rous­selle makes a com­pelling argu­ment for see­ing Titane as loud and large as pos­si­ble. It also gives pre­cious lit­tle of the film’s plot away – a must in good poster design!

Cre­at­ed by Pas­cal Witaszek

Pedro Almovadar’s films are absolute­ly metic­u­lous in their pro­duc­tion design, so we’d expect noth­ing less from his posters either. This bold provoca­tive (not that a woman’s nip­ple should be so, but Insta­gram had to apol­o­gise after they banned the poster) state­ment also hints at the trau­ma at the heart of his mater­nal melo­dra­ma, and the strik­ing red means it stands out from the crowd. Won­der­ful stuff from our favourite Span­ish auteur.

Cre­at­ed by Javier Jaén

If you didn’t catch Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar ear­li­er in the year, please rem­e­dy that at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience. A joy­ful ode to female friend­ship and banana boats, it’s one of the year’s under­rat­ed gems, and this sur­re­al, colour­ful poster sells the vibe wholesale.

Cre­at­ed by Leroy and Rose