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 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Alphaville | Jean-Luc Godard | 27x41 | ||||||
Boccaccio 70 | Vittorio de Sica Federico Fellini Luchino Visconti |
27x41 | ||||||
Bogart | 27x41 | |||||||
Chinoise, La | Jean-Luc Godard | 27x41 | ||||||
Devil's Eye, The | Ingmar Bergman | 27x41 | ||||||
Divorce Italian Style | Pietro Germi | 27x41 | ||||||
Hoosiers | David Anspaugh | 27x41 | ||||||
I'm All Right Jack | John Boulting | 41x81 | ||||||
Juliet of the Spirits | Federico Fellini | 27x41 | ||||||
Kagemusha | Akira Kurosawa | 27x41 | ||||||
Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, The |
Alexander Mackendrick Charles Crichton |
27x41 | ||||||
Macao | Josef von Sternberg | 27x41 | ||||||
Nosferatu | Werner Herzog | 27x41 | ||||||
Pygmalion | Anthony Asquith Leslie Howard |
27x41 | ||||||
Rififi | Jules Dassin | 27x41 | ||||||
River's Edge, The | Tim Hunter | 27x41 | ||||||
Smiles of a Summer Night | Ingmar Bergman | 27x41 | ||||||
Tin Drum, The | Völker Schlondorff | 27x41 | ||||||
Top Hat Music Box, The |
Mark Sandrich Hal Roach |
27x41 | ||||||
Underworld USA | Samuel Fuller | 27x41 | ||||||
WR: Mysteries of the Organism | Dusan Makavejev | 27x41 | ||||||
Week-End | Palle Kjaerulff-Schmidt | 27x41 | ||||||
Wild One, The | Stanley Kramer | 27x41 | ||||||
Z | Costa-Gavras | 27x41 | ||||||
Kiss Me Deadly | Robert Aldrich | 55-184 | 27x41 | |||||
We're No Angels | Michael Curtiz | 55/258 | 27x41 | |||||
Jet Pilot | Josef von Sternberg | 55/417 | 41x81 | |||||
Touch of Evil | Orson Welles | 58/56 | 27x41 | |||||
Rio Bravo | Howard Hawks | 59/96 | 41x81 | |||||
Babette Goes to War | Christian-Jaque | 60/18 | 41x81 | |||||
Psycho | Alfred Hitchcock | 60/219 | 27x41 | |||||
Let's Make Love | George Cukor | 60/259 | 27x41 | |||||
Dolce Vita, La | Federico Fellini | 61/257 | 27x41 | |||||
Misfits, The | John Huston | 61/47 | 27x41 | |||||
One Eyed Jacks | Marlon Brando | 61/95 | 27x41 | |||||
Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The | John Ford | 62/125 | 27x41 | |||||
Tom Jones | Tony Richardson | 63/232 | 27x41 | |||||
Shock Corridor | Samuel Fuller | 63/248 | 27x41 | |||||
Naked Kiss, The | Samuel Fuller | 64/157 | 27x41 | |||||
Topkapi | Jules Dassin | 64/302 | 27x41 | |||||
Cheyenne Autumn | John Ford | 64/339 | 81x81 | |||||
Dr. Strangelove | Stanley Kubrick | 64/4 | 27x41 | |||||
Beach Blanket Bingo | William Asher | 65/156 | 27x41 | |||||
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter Billy the Kid vs. Dracula |
William Beaudine William Beaudine |
65/369 | 27x41 | |||||
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round | Bernard Girard | 66/344 | 27x41 | |||||
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round | Bernard Girard | 66/344 | 41x81 | |||||
Countess from Hong Kong, The | Charles Chaplin | 67/102 | 27x41 | |||||
King of Hearts | Philippe de Broca | 67/216 | 27x41 | |||||
Point Blank | John Boorman | 67/300 | 27x41 | |||||
Ulysses | Joseph Strick | 67/56 | 27x41 | |||||
Charge of the Light Brigade, The | Tony Richardson | 68/187 | 27x41 | |||||
Night of the Living Dead | George Romero | 68/321 | 27x41 | |||||
Hour of the Wolf | Ingmar Bergman | 68/75 | 27x41 | |||||
If | Lindsay Anderson | 69/124 | 27x41 | |||||
Midnight Cowboy | John Schlesinger | 69/192 | 27x41 | |||||
Spirits of the Dead | Roger Vadim Louis Malle Federico Fellini |
69/269 | 27x41 | |||||
Stolen Kisses | François Truffaut | 69/96 | 27x41 | |||||
Satyricon | Federico Fellini | 70/112 | 27x41 | |||||
Passion of Anna, The | Ingmar Bergman | 70/157 | 27x41 | |||||
Let It Be | Michael Lindsey-Hogg | 70/169 | 27x41 | |||||
Borsalino | Jacques Deray | 70/245 | 27x41 | |||||
Burn | Gillo Pontecorvo | 70/330 | 41x81 | |||||
Burn | Gillo Pontecorvo | 70/330 [style A] | 27x41 | |||||
Burn | Gillo Pontecorvo | 70/330 [style B] | 27x41 | |||||
Damned, The | Lucino Visconti | 70/36 | 27x41 | |||||
They Might Be Giants | Anthony Harvey | 71/121 | 27x41 | |||||
Death in Venice | Lucino Visconti | 71/128 | 27x41 | |||||
Klute | Alan J. Pakula | 71/176 | 27x41 | |||||
French Connection,The | William Friedkin | 71/316 | 27x41 | |||||
Harold and Maude | Hal Ashby | 71/359 | 27x41 | |||||
Marx Brothers | 71/373 | 27x41 | ||||||
Bed and Board | François Truffaut | 71/86 | 27x41 | |||||
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The | Billy Wilder | 711/12 | 27x41 | |||||
City Lights | Charles Chaplin | 72/146 | 27x41 | |||||
Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, The | Phil Kaufman | 72/151 | 27x41 | |||||
Frenzy | Alfred Hitchcock | 72/196 | 27x41 | |||||
Great Dictator,The | Charles Chaplin | 72/271 | 27x41 | |||||
Superfly | Gordon Parks | 72/319 | 27x41 | |||||
Gumshoe | Stephen Frears | 72/35 | 27x41 | |||||
Roma | Federico Fellini | 72/372 | 27x41 | |||||
2001: A Space Odyssey | Stanley Kubrick | 72/38 | 27x41 | |||||
Deliverance | John Boorman | 72/8 | 27x41 | |||||
Enter the Dragon | Robert Clouse | 73-268 | 27x41 | |||||
Fists of Fury | Wei Lo | 73/112 | 27x41 | |||||
Last Tango in Paris | Bernardo Bertolucci | 73/160 | 27x41 | |||||
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid | Sam Peckinpah | 73/163 | 27x41 | |||||
Electra Glide in Blue | James William Guercio | 73/180 | 27x41 | |||||
American Graffiti | George Lucas | 73/253 | 27x41 | |||||
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | George Roy Hill | 73/323 | 27x41 | |||||
Day for Night | François Truffaut | 73/34? | 27x41 | |||||
Conversation,The | Francis Coppola | 74/142 | 27x41 | |||||
Chinatown | Roman Polanski | 74/205 | 27x41 | |||||
Amarcord | Federico Fellini | 74/333 | 27x41 | |||||
Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, The | Gerard Oury | 74/71 | 27x41 | |||||
Three Muskateers, The | Richard Lester | 74/72 | 27x41 | |||||
Nashville | Robert Altman | 75/161 | 27x41 | |||||
Four Muskateers,The | Richard Lester | 75/22 | 27x41 | |||||
Shampoo | Hal Ashby | 75/39 | 27x41 | |||||
Passenger, The | Michelangelo Antonioni | 75/94 | 27x41 | |||||
Family Plot | Alfred Hitchcock | 76/94 | 27x41 | |||||
Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Steven Spielberg | 77-181 | 27x41 | |||||
Star Wars | George Lucas | 77/21 | 27x41 | |||||
Star Wars | George Lucas | 77/21 | 27x41 | |||||
Third Man, The | Carol Reed | R56-428 | 41x81 | |||||
Big Heat, The | Fritz Lang | R59/122 | 27x41 | |||||
Merry Widow,The | Ernst Lubitsch | R62/198 | 27x41 | |||||
Rear Window | Alfred Hitchcock | R62/341 | 27x41 | |||||
Shane | George Stevens | R66/109 | 27x41 | |||||
Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble with Harry, The |
Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock |
R68/71 | 27x41 | |||||
Five Easy Pieces | Bob Rafaelson | R73/221 | 27x41 | |||||
Singin' in the Rain | Stanley Donan Gene Kelly |
R75/207 | 27x41 |