Movie posters

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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.

Basics

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.

Sources

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.

Notes

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