Above: English-language festival poster for There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse (Nicolás Zukerfeld, Argentina, 2020). Design by Marcelo Granero.
So another nine months have gone by since I last did one of these round-ups. As I’ve been doing for many years, I have tallied up the most popular posters featured on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram (previously Tumblr).
The biggest surprise, not least to its designer, was the popularity of a festival poster for an experimental Argentinian film There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways of Showing a Man Getting on a Horse which has racked up some 2,335 likes to date and was the third most popular design I posted in the whole of 2020 (after the two Parasite posters that topped my last round-up). When I say it’s surprising it’s because film recognition tends to play a big part in the popularity of posts, so the fact that Marcelo Granero’s design stood out is purely a tribute to its unique and beautifully executed design.
Three other posters for new films made the cut: Akiko Stehrenberger and Gravillis Inc.’s design for Da 5 Bloods, the US release poster for the documentary M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity (which, full disclosure, as design director for Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber, I had a very small hand in: my main contribution being to rotate the periods in Escher’s name to echo the shape of his artwork!), and a fan poster for Wes Anderson’s still unreleased The French Dispatch by up and coming designer Xan Black.
I don’t usually post fan art but one other caught my eye (and everybody else’s apparently): the florid design for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood by the superb Polish artist Maks Bereski who goes by the name of Plakiat. Coincidentally, two other Once Upon a Time...s made the list: an East German poster for Once Upon a Time in the West posted to mark the passing of Ennio Morricone, and a Polish poster for Once Upon a Time in America by the great Jan Mlodozeniec. Equally coincidentally, two of his posters—the other being for Blue Velvet—ended up neck and neck in third place with, currently, 1,989 likes.
So, without further ado, here are the rest of the 25 most popular posters of the past nine months of Movie Poster of the Day (all racking up 1,200 likes or more), presented, as always, in gently descending order of popularity.
Above: Alternative art print for The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, USA, 1980). Design by Saul Bass. Posted on the 40th anniversary of the film’s premiere on May 23, 2020.
Above: Polish poster for Blue Velvet (David Lynch, USA, 1986). Artist: Jan Mlodozeniec. Posted as part of my obviously very successful #VoteBlue2020 campaign.
Above: Polish poster for Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, Italy/USA, 1984). Artist: Jan Mlodozeniec.
Above: French affiche for The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico, 1973). Design by Studio 48.
Above: US one sheet for M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity (Robin Lutz, Netherlands, 2019). Original designer unknown, touch-ups by yours truly, artwork by M.C. Escher.
Above: French grande for Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, USA, 1999). Designer unknown.
Above: 1985 Polish poster by for No End (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1985). Designer: Andrzej Pagowski.
Above: US one sheet for Deliverance (John Boorman, USA, 1972). Design by Bill Gold. Posted as one of ace designer Vasilis Marmatakis’s top ten favorite movie posters of all-time.
Above: 1980 Spanish re-release poster for Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1959). Art by F. Bourgin. Posted on Godard’s 90th birthday on December 3rd.
Above: Fan art poster for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, USA, 2019). Design by Maks Bereski aka Plakiat.
Above: 1994 Japanese chirashi for a re-release of Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1962). Design by Tycoon Graphics. Posted to mark what would have been Anna Karina’s 80th birthday on September 22nd.
Above: 1953 German re-release poster for The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, France, 1928). Artist: Bender.
Above: French poster for Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, USA, 1978). Artist unknown. Posted in memory of Linda Manz who passed away on August 14th.
Above: Unused poster for Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, USA, 1970). Design by Milton Glaser posted to mark his passing on June 26th.
Above: Italian 4-fogli for Trafic (Jacques Tati, France, 1971). Artist: Averardo Ciriello.
Above: Fan art poster for The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, USA, 2020). Designer: Xan Black.
Above: Italian poster for Videodrome (David Cronenberg, Canada, 1983). Artist unknown.
Above: East German poster for Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, Italy/USA, 1968). Artist: Thomas Schleusing. Posted in memory of composer Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) who died on July 6th.
Above: Japanese chirashi for A Time to Live and a Time to Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 1985). Artist: Toru Minegishi.
Above: 1975 Japanese re-release poster for The Third Man (Carol Reed, UK, 1949). Designer unknown.
Above: French grande for Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, France/Poland, 1993). Another of my #voteblue2020 posts.
Above: British double crown poster for Images (Robert Altman, USA, 1972). Designer TBD but possibly Bob Gill. See more posters for Images here.
Above: US one sheet for Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee, USA, 2020). Design by Gravillis; art by Akiko Stehrenberger.
Above: 1976 Hungarian poster for The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, USA, 1939). Designer: Olga Tövisváry. Posted as part of my round-up of Hungarian movie posters.
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