This page lists 111 movie posters from my collection. It's a work in progress. The poster inventory is almost (but not quite) complete, but the inventory below has no poster images yet, which makes it pretty uninteresting; stay tuned. My movie still collection has its own page, including images.
National Screen Service (NSS) produced most American movie advertising material from the 1940s through the 1980s. NSS numbers posters by year, so for example 77-21 is Star Wars from 1977. An NSS number starting with R indicates a rerelease, so R62-198 is the 1962 rerelease of Lubitsch's Merry Widow. Non-NSS posters often have a copyright date, but not always.
The most common US movie poster format measures 27"x41", called a one-sheet; more recent one-sheets have shrunk slightly to 27"x40". To fit the fixed display windows in theaters, one-sheets are always in portrait format, never landscape. One-sheets are normally folded for shipping, only rarely rolled. A three-sheet is about 41"x78", the size of three one-sheets rotated 90 degrees and stacked, usually printed as a one-sheet plus a two-sheet with overlap on adjoining edges. A six-sheet is about 81"x78", the size of two side-by-side three-sheets, usually printed as two one-sheets plus two two-sheets, again with some overlap on adjoining edges. Three-sheets and six-sheets are too large to display in most rooms. A lobby card is 14"x11" (landscape format), usually part of a set. My collection contains about two hundred fifty stills, one hundred one-sheets, seven three-sheets, a single six-sheet (Ford's Cheyanne Autumn), a dozen sets of lobby cards, and a few other items.
I started buying movie posters and stills in 1972, while I was a graduate student. Movies were my primary distraction from writing my thesis. I didn't have much money, but it was not an expensive habit. Initially, I bought posters by mail order from Cinema Attic and Movie Poster Place, where a one-sheet typically cost $3, though I paid up to $6 for a select few. While I worked at the Festival Cinema in Palo Alto, I could get posters directly from NSS, where most one-sheets cost $1.65 or $1.80. I stopped buying posters around the end of 1976, though a few drifted into my collection later from friends and from garage sales.
My oldest posters date from the mid-1950s; older posters were typically not available from NSS, and they were too expensive from other vendors. Purchases were always sight unseen, which led to some disappointments, such as when I tried to order a one-sheet of Godard's wonderful 1967 Week End but received a one-sheet for the 1962 Danish film Weekend instead.
Click on a heading below to sort the list accordingly.
Title | Director | NSS | Size | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bogart | 27x41 | |||||||
Marx Brothers | 71/373 | 27x41 | ||||||
Kiss Me Deadly | Aldrich, Robert | 55-184 | 27x41 | |||||
Nashville | Altman, Robert | 75/161 | 27x41 | |||||
If | Anderson, Lindsay | 69/124 | 27x41 | |||||
Hoosiers | Anspaugh, David | 27x41 | ||||||
Passenger, The | Antonioni, Michelangelo | 75/94 | 27x41 | |||||
Harold and Maude | Ashby, Hal | 71/359 | 27x41 | |||||
Shampoo | Ashby, Hal | 75/39 | 27x41 | |||||
Beach Blanket Bingo | Asher, William | 65/156 | 27x41 | |||||
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter Billy the Kid vs. Dracula |
Beaudine, William Beaudine William |
65/369 | 27x41 | |||||
Devil's Eye, The | Bergman, Ingmar | 27x41 | ||||||
Hour of the Wolf | Bergman, Ingmar | 68/75 | 27x41 | |||||
Passion of Anna, The | Bergman, Ingmar | 70/157 | 27x41 | |||||
Smiles of a Summer Night | Bergman, Ingmar | 27x41 | ||||||
Last Tango in Paris | Bertolucci, Bernardo | 73/160 | 27x41 | |||||
Deliverance | Boorman, John | 72/8 | 27x41 | |||||
Point Blank | Boorman, John | 67/300 | 27x41 | |||||
I'm All Right Jack | Boulting, John | 41x81 | ||||||
One Eyed Jacks | Brando, Marlon | 61/95 | 27x41 | |||||
City Lights | Chaplin, Charles | 72/146 | 27x41 | |||||
Countess from Hong Kong, The | Chaplin, Charles | 67/102 | 27x41 | |||||
Great Dictator,The | Chaplin, Charles | 72/271 | 27x41 | |||||
Babette Goes to War | Christian-Jaque | 60/18 | 41x81 | |||||
Enter the Dragon | Clouse, Robert | 73-268 | 27x41 | |||||
Conversation,The | Coppola, Francis | 74/142 | 27x41 | |||||
Z | Costa-Gavras | 27x41 | ||||||
Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, The |
Crichton, Alexander Mackendrick Charles |
27x41 | ||||||
Let's Make Love | Cukor, George | 60/259 | 27x41 | |||||
We're No Angels | Curtiz, Michael | 55/258 | 27x41 | |||||
Rififi | Dassin, Jules | 27x41 | ||||||
Topkapi | Dassin, Jules | 64/302 | 27x41 | |||||
King of Hearts | De Broca, Philippe | 67/216 | 27x41 | |||||
Boccaccio 70 | De Sica Federico Fellini Luchino Visconti, Vittorio |
27x41 | ||||||
Borsalino | Deray, Jacques | 70/245 | 27x41 | |||||
Amarcord | Fellini, Federico | 74/333 | 27x41 | |||||
Dolce Vita, La | Fellini, Federico | 61/257 | 27x41 | |||||
Juliet of the Spirits | Fellini, Federico | 27x41 | ||||||
Roma | Fellini, Federico | 72/372 | 27x41 | |||||
Satyricon | Fellini, Federico | 70/112 | 27x41 | |||||
Spirits of the Dead | Fellini, Roger Vadim Louis Malle Federico |
69/269 | 27x41 | |||||
Cheyenne Autumn | Ford, John | 64/339 | 81x81 | |||||
Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The | Ford, John | 62/125 | 27x41 | |||||
Gumshoe | Frears, Stephen | 72/35 | 27x41 | |||||
French Connection,The | Friedkin, William | 71/316 | 27x41 | |||||
Naked Kiss, The | Fuller, Samuel | 64/157 | 27x41 | |||||
Shock Corridor | Fuller, Samuel | 63/248 | 27x41 | |||||
Underworld USA | Fuller, Samuel | 27x41 | ||||||
Divorce Italian Style | Germi, Pietro | 27x41 | ||||||
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round | Girard, Bernard | 66/344 | 41x81 | |||||
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round | Girard, Bernard | 66/344 | 27x41 | |||||
Alphaville | Godard, Jean-Luc | 27x41 | ||||||
Chinoise, La | Godard, Jean-Luc | 27x41 | ||||||
Electra Glide in Blue | Guercio, James William | 73/180 | 27x41 | |||||
They Might Be Giants | Harvey, Anthony | 71/121 | 27x41 | |||||
Rio Bravo | Hawks, Howard | 59/96 | 41x81 | |||||
Nosferatu | Herzog, Werner | 27x41 | ||||||
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | Hill, George Roy | 73/323 | 27x41 | |||||
Family Plot | Hitchcock, Alfred | 76/94 | 27x41 | |||||
Frenzy | Hitchcock, Alfred | 72/196 | 27x41 | |||||
Psycho | Hitchcock, Alfred | 60/219 | 27x41 | |||||
Rear Window | Hitchcock, Alfred | R62/341 | 27x41 | |||||
Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble with Harry, The |
Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock Alfred |
R68/71 | 27x41 | |||||
Pygmalion | Howard, Anthony Asquith Leslie |
27x41 | ||||||
River's Edge, The | Hunter, Tim | 27x41 | ||||||
Misfits, The | Huston, John | 61/47 | 27x41 | |||||
Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, The | Kaufman, Phil | 72/151 | 27x41 | |||||
Singin' in the Rain | Kelly, Stanley Donan Gene |
R75/207 | 27x41 | |||||
Week-End | Kjaerulff-Schmidt, Palle | 27x41 | ||||||
Wild One, The | Kramer, Stanley | 27x41 | ||||||
2001: A Space Odyssey | Kubrick, Stanley | 72/38 | 27x41 | |||||
Dr. Strangelove | Kubrick, Stanley | 64/4 | 27x41 | |||||
Kagemusha | Kurosawa, Akira | 27x41 | ||||||
Big Heat, The | Lang, Fritz | R59/122 | 27x41 | |||||
Four Muskateers,The | Lester, Richard | 75/22 | 27x41 | |||||
Three Muskateers, The | Lester, Richard | 74/72 | 27x41 | |||||
Let It Be | Lindsey-Hogg, Michael | 70/169 | 27x41 | |||||
Fists of Fury | Lo, Wei | 73/112 | 27x41 | |||||
Merry Widow,The | Lubitsch, Ernst | R62/198 | 27x41 | |||||
American Graffiti | Lucas, George | 73/253 | 27x41 | |||||
Star Wars | Lucas, George | 77/21 | 27x41 | |||||
Star Wars | Lucas, George | 77/21 | 27x41 | |||||
WR: Mysteries of the Organism | Makavejev, Dusan | 27x41 | ||||||
Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, The | Oury, Gerard | 74/71 | 27x41 | |||||
Klute | Pakula, Alan J. | 71/176 | 27x41 | |||||
Superfly | Parks, Gordon | 72/319 | 27x41 | |||||
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid | Peckinpah, Sam | 73/163 | 27x41 | |||||
Chinatown | Polanski, Roman | 74/205 | 27x41 | |||||
Burn | Pontecorvo, Gillo | 70/330 | 41x81 | |||||
Burn | Pontecorvo, Gillo | 70/330 [style A] | 27x41 | |||||
Burn | Pontecorvo, Gillo | 70/330 [style B] | 27x41 | |||||
Five Easy Pieces | Rafaelson, Bob | R73/221 | 27x41 | |||||
Third Man, The | Reed, Carol | R56-428 | 41x81 | |||||
Charge of the Light Brigade, The | Richardson, Tony | 68/187 | 27x41 | |||||
Tom Jones | Richardson, Tony | 63/232 | 27x41 | |||||
Top Hat Music Box, The |
Roach, Mark Sandrich Hal |
27x41 | ||||||
Night of the Living Dead | Romero, George | 68/321 | 27x41 | |||||
Midnight Cowboy | Schlesinger, John | 69/192 | 27x41 | |||||
Tin Drum, The | Schlondorff, Völker | 27x41 | ||||||
Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Spielberg, Steven | 77-181 | 27x41 | |||||
Jet Pilot | Sternberg, Josef von | 55/417 | 41x81 | |||||
Macao | Sternberg, Josef von | 27x41 | ||||||
Shane | Stevens, George | R66/109 | 27x41 | |||||
Ulysses | Strick, Joseph | 67/56 | 27x41 | |||||
Bed and Board | Truffaut, François | 71/86 | 27x41 | |||||
Day for Night | Truffaut, François | 73/34? | 27x41 | |||||
Stolen Kisses | Truffaut, François | 69/96 | 27x41 | |||||
Damned, The | Visconti, Lucino | 70/36 | 27x41 | |||||
Death in Venice | Visconti, Lucino | 71/128 | 27x41 | |||||
Touch of Evil | Welles, Orson | 58/56 | 27x41 | |||||
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The | Wilder, Billy | 711/12 | 27x41 |