Above: Japanese poster for Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 2012); Designer: unknown.
Since I’ve now been running the Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr for a year and a half I thought it was high time I did another six month round-up of the most popular posters on the blog.
For some reason this Japanese poster for Zero Dark Thirty—an even more striking version of the American teaser—which I posted three months ago recently went semi-viral, racking up over 1,400 “notes” to date, making it by far the most popular (in as far as likes and reblogs really gauge popularity) in the history of the blog which now has, according to Tumblr, over 198,000 followers.
I’m especially pleased with the popularity of the second and third ranked posters: a couple of quite eccentric pieces of Eastern European illustration for lesser known films. It’s probably no surprise that more than half of the 21 most popular posters of the past six months are from Eastern Europe. The majority, as usual, are from the 60s and 70s but it’s nice to see three contemporary designs in the mix. And I extended this Top 20 to 21 just because I love that Japanese Hud so much.
You can see my entire archive here, though I hate what Tumblr has done to the archive format in just in the past day or two. I much preferred the smaller thumbnails that were easily to scroll through and get a better overview. Hopefully they’ll change it back.
If you’re not on Tumblr you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook and get daily updates there. And every Friday of course I will post a link back to my more in-depth pieces here on MUBI.
Above: Czech poster for Katia and the Crocodile (Věra Plívová-Šimková, Czechoslovakia, 1965); Designer: Zdenek Ziegler (b. 1932).
Above: Hungarian poster for The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Karel Zeman, Czechoslovakia, 1958); Designer: “HG.”
Above: 2013 US teaser poster for Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, USA, 2013); Designer: Gravillas Inc.
Above: 1965 East German poster for The Thief of Bagdad (Michael Powell and Ludwig Berger, UK, 1940); Designer: Werner Gottsmann (1924-2004).
Above: 1977 Polish poster for The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlöndorff & Margarethe von Trotta, West Germany, 1975); Artist: Andrzej Krajewski (b. 1933).
Above: French affiche for Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, West Germany/USA, 1984); Artist: Guy Peellaert (1934-2008).
Above: 1964 Czech poster for Les animaux (Frédéric Rossif, France, 1964); Designer: Cenek Prazák (1914-1996).
Above: 1959 Polish poster for Love in the Afternoon (Billy Wilder, USA, 1957); Artist: Wojciech Fangor (b. 1922).
Above: 2012 US teaser poster for Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh, USA, 2013); Designer: Kellerhouse.
Above: 1973 Polish poster for Cabaret (Bob Fosse, USA, 1972); Artist: Wiktor Gorka (1922-2004).
Above: Czech poster for Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1966); Designer: Karel Teissig (1925-2000).
Above: 1962 Czech poster for The Suitor (Pierre Etaix, France, 1962); Artist: Karel Vaca (1919-1989).
Above: US one sheet for Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, Canada, 1991); Designer: uncredited.
Above: 1968 Czech poster for Grand Prix (John Frankenheimer, USA, 1966); Artist: Eva Galová-Vodrážková (b. 1940).
Above: US one sheet for Black Emanuelle (Bitto Albertini, Spain/Italy, 1975); Designer: unknown.
Above: Japanese poster for Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman, USA, 1970); Designer: unknown.
Above: 1962 Polish poster for Sleeping Beauty (Clyde Geronimi, USA, 1959); Artist: Hanna Bodnar (b. 1929).
Above: US one sheet for Bad Timing/A Sensual Obsession (Nicolas Roeg, UK, 1980); Artist: uncredited.
Above: Polish poster for How to Be Loved (Wojciech Has, Poland, 1963); Designer: Witold Janowski (1926-2006).
Above: Japanese poster for Hud (Martin Ritt, USA, 1963); Designer: unknown.
Poster sources are all credited on Movie Poster of the Day; click on the titles for more information.