I walked by a movie theatre this morning and realized how long it’s been since I went to the movies (which is for the best, since I tend to loathe people). But I had forgotten about movie posters!

As in, forgotten how hilarious they are, in one way or another. Let’s take a look at some movie posters!

We begin with an indie romp, clearly indicated by the presence of symbolically-colored umbrellas and Mark Ruffalo.

Do we know what the movie’s about? Nope. Does it matter? Nope! It’s an indie romp! All you need to know is that at some point, on their way out of a wacky situation, a car will explode in Photoshop behind someone in a bowler hat.

The top half of this poster isn’t any better Photoshopped. I mean, Can you even see the difference between the teaser poster and the final?

Teaser poster:

UCANNY, right? Man, if I had a nickel for every time Rihanna dropped out of a movie and they had to hire Adrien Brody instead.

It’s sort of easier when your core cast is smaller:

I’ll say it now and I’ll say it every time this comes up: it looks like she carved a statue of him in shop class and she broke into the school at night and is pushing it out to her car so she can drive it home and pretend she’s slow-dancing with it.

What does not work is when you highlight the wrong member of your cast:

Of all the people on that poster, she’s sort of the last one I would present as “Can Act Well in This!” (Or, let’s be fair, “In Anything”.) I mean, Ralph Fiennes gets half a picture of his Thomas Jefferson impression and Keira Knightley is front and center?

It’s a shame, too, because the dress looks lovely if you can drag your eyes away from her dead-fish face.

Delightful frock, no?

On the other hand, it’s not always the actor’s fault if their poster ends up looking wonky.

Sally Hawkins is a very good actress. I am not sure why they chose a picture where she looks less Happy-Go-Lucky than she looks Recently-Concussed.

So, some poster-makers try to downplay their cast and hit a scene instead, especially if it’s the setup and not the cast that’s the hook.

Sometimes this works:

Sometimes it doesn’t:

“Yeah, hi, is this the Graphics Department? I have a Mr. Spielberg on the line for you? He sounds pissed.”

But my favorite posters are probably those that take a cue from book covers and try to entice the viewer with a single graphic element that conveys some essential soul of the story.

This movie poster conveys the image perfectly, and tells me all I need to know about a movie that’s not getting a dime of my money. Well-done, graphics department, for pre-sorting your audience and saving me ten bucks!

This, on the other hand, stopped me in my tracks. It’s gorgeous. Even if I didn’t know the play, I would know all I needed to know just by looking at this poster. And what I know is, this graphics team deserves a raise, STAT.

I mean, the cross is edged in stained glass, the top of the cross has the smokestack detail of an old-ass church, and all the information about the movie is within the confines of the cross. This here is a movie about some CHURCH WHOOPS, you guys, and the poster makes no bones about it. Nice job.