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