A movie poster is more than just an announcement of an upcoming film. It has to awaken your interest, hook you in, and make you curious enough to go and see the movie. To put it simply, posters have the task of selling the film to you in just one image. But with time, they have grown beyond this goal as well.
Some of the best movie posters have inspired a whole aesthetic of decorating your home or place of business, especially coffee shops and bakeries. It’s always fun to enter someone’s house or a new cafe and try to count how many of the displayed movies you have seen. You can also tell a lot about the owner’s taste in cinema based on the posters they display. Vintage movie posters have even become valuable collectibles, with cinephiles all over the world trying to get rare posters into their possession.
But while great movie posters are a form of art of their own, things happen, and bad movie posters also come to exist. Why do they happen? Reasons may vary from somebody just being a bad designer to not really knowing what the movie is about. Why such movie posters get approved is a whole different story, but at least they provide us with a reason to laugh, especially if you have actually seen the movie.
In this article you will find quite a few examples of bad poster design. Which one looks the ugliest to you? Don’t forget to vote for it. Share this article with your friends, and show us in the comments other strange, unappealing, or downright bad movie posters you have seen.
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Star Wars
"Russian poster for Star Wars is crazy. Darth Vader is a cat."
Top Dog
Flint_Vorselon replied:
"Please tell me the dog was the brains of the operation."
The Penthouse
Prince-of-Ravens replied:
"Pretty sure every single thing in that poster comes from a stock photo site."
Going Overboard
whendoesOpTicplay replied:
"Is it supposed to look like he's in the Sims?"
Spanish Poster For Chef Movie
User No 1 replied:
"Jesus. I couldn't even recall Robert Downey Jr. being in Chef. Was he in it for like a single scene or something?"
Grown UPS 2
FireTigerThrowdown replied:
"Wonderful posters. Hurr durr, grown men sure are infantile manchildren while women are joyless mother figures."
Finding Normal
"I don't even remember where I saw this, but it took me no time at all to realize it's the worst one I've ever seen."
X-Men: First Class
SUBLIMINAL__MESSAGES replied:
"It should've just been the silhouettes, the faces are such a horrendous idea they should've never made it past the planning phase."
Love Never Dies
becauseican95 replied:
"The poster's bad. The title's worse."
as a musician, hear me out (or just skip to the bottom): 1. her bow is too short, never mind the completely sacrilegious way she’s holding it (NEVER TOUCH THE BOW HAIR). 2. where on earth is her chinrest? It looks like a viola, it’s way to big to be a violin, but i’m assuming they were trying to have her play violin. 3. the photoshop is atrocious, and 4. those fine tuners are disgusting- she would never get a decent sound with those huge metal tuners on her tailpiece. RESEARCH, PEOPLE! please, i beg you- just ask any musician and we’d be so happy to help with any of this
My Ghost Dog
"I work in health care and some of the movies that we get are these christian movie house films to show to elderly or kids and you're just like "Dude this movie looks like it'll make them feel worse." So we always end up buying the latest movies and keeping them in rotation for people to watch."
Left Behind
criminalsunrise replied:
"That looks like Nicholas Cage's face on John Travolta's body... hold on, that'd make a great film!"
Weird as the movie itself... not as strange as the kirk Cameron trilogy though
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Blonde And Blonder
Hit By Lightning
DQ11 replied:
"Still though it is almost worth mentioning twice.
3 very obvious separate pictures attempted to be pieced together + fake gun arm... just odd. Somebody got paid money for this... and then probably got another job after, and got paid for that too."
Zyzzyx Road
jer706 replied:
"This movie grossed a total of literally $30 in the box office on a $1.2 million budget."
It grossed $30 because they intentionally limited it to one showing per day at one single cinema in Texas. The production team wanted the US release to be after the foreign release, but in order to meet criteria set by the Screen Actors' Guild they had to do the US release first.
Shaggy The Dog
"They put his eyes on a dog and it's just creepy."
The Accidental Husband
isorx0932 replied:
"Please tell me this isn't real. Was this done in Microsoft paint?"
Cook Off
Good Luck Chuck
"Everything about this poster is wrong."
Jessica Alba yes, Dane Cook 100% no, I can't even comprehend how he's considered to be funny.
The Bling Ring
"Font and letter spacing is shocking."
Contraband
"Mark Wahlberg looks like he is scratching his back and doing a terrible job of hiding the money strapped to his waist."
this is me but instead of money it is the chocolate i stole from the pantry
Zookeeper
The Fall
Kangaroo Jack
AHHHHHH NO! THATS NOT JACK ITS A SERIAL KILLER!!!!!!!;
Chairman Of The Board
A Good Day To Die Hard
pitaenigma replied:
"I will not have that movie spoken ill of. It is the world's greatest nap movie. I have never sat through it without falling asleep ten minutes in, and waking up to a helicopter exploding is glorious. I fell asleep to it in movie theaters, I fell asleep to it when I pirated it, and I fell asleep to it when it was on TV. I never fall asleep to movies, but that film is fucking Nyquil to me. So don't talk ill about it. I'm an insomniac and this is the only cure."
Avengers: Age Of Ultron
User No 1 said:
"It's pretty much a running joke by now that Marvel team up movies have bad posters. Nothing to qualify as the worst by any measure, but just completely uninspired photoshop hack jobs. The solo movies tend to have decent ones, but the Avengers movies and Civil War had some bad ones."
A_Dog_Chasing_Cars replied:
"I'm especially amused by this Age of Ultron one.
'Boss, who do we put on the poster?'
'Everyone!'"
Now hold on, as a marvel fan, I don’t think that looks too bad -ps what do scarlet witch and daredevil have in common? They both lost their vision
Spider-Man 3
"Looks like it was made by a guy just learning Photoshop."
One Missed Call
Russell Madness
masterobiwan replied:
"Oh gosh. I saw a trailer for that the other day."
Meet The Deedles
i will happily pass on meeting the deedles thank you
Spider-Man: Homecoming
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
Takers
rocker2014 said:
"Worst photoshopped poster ever."
Blinkskij replied:
"I love Idris Elba, but I'm fairly sure he's not an actual light source."
VictorBlimpmuscle also replied:
"Paul Walker's head looks like it's photoshopped onto a black man's neck."
Breakin' All The Rules
I feel like Jamie Foxx probably regrets accepting a part in this movie XD
All About Steve
Carpool
Grudge Match
"There's one for a film called something like Grudge Match, with an incredibly poorly photoshopped De Niro and Stallone on it. That one is a big contender for me."
The Trust
sunshinecid replied:
"Why are Elijah Wood's hands SO big?"
Stolen
jumpbreak5 replied:
"Still blows my mind that this movie actually happened. It really does look like it was based on a photoshopped movie poster made by a redditor."
nick cage just has a face that always looks photoshopped
Exodus: Gods And Kings
whendoesOpTicplay replied:
"I feel like it was a poor attempt at hiding that the "Egyptians" were being played by two white dudes."
Sniper: Special Ops
Magic In The Moonlight
Why does it look like someone is trying to throw a ball at her?
Mamas's Boy
Redditor said:
"I can't believe that I saw the movie, it makes me despise Jon Heder."
Cyclops_ replied:
"I like Jon Heder. I feel like I must see this. I believe it'll be terrible, and not in the cool way. I feel like I vaguely remember it coming out, but then again I can't even imagine one shot."
The man looks like he’s just seen someone get murdered and I don’t even know if the girl on the right is a love interest or a badly casted mom
Fifth Element
"Was talking to my brother and he threw this bomb at me, Fifth Element Movie Poster."
The Whole Ten Yards
Heavy Petting
PedosoKJ replied:
"How hard would it have been to get the dog to lick her face?"
Shelter
I Am Wrath
dugpdcv said:
"Damn, the guy looks like Liam Hemsworth on the poster."
Afrasher replied:
"Looks like they photoshopped the top half of John Travolta's face onto the body of Arnie's Terminator."
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
Hoogs replied:
"Nic looks about 80 years old in that photo."
Bangkok Dangerous
"Whats his arm doing, looks like he's doing a bad magic trick & also FLAMES & stuff."
Jack Reacher
Daddy Day Care
PineappleSlices replied:
"Watch how many children I can fit up my a**."
The Heat
Gulliver’s Travels
Don't let these Lilliputians get you down, Jack. 🎶Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches...
The Blue Lagoon
The Last Song
Rhinestone
Brother Nature
This looks like a movie that I would walk in on my parents watching because my uncle recommended it to them and kept making references to
The Wonder Boys
"This poster is totally laughable."
Million Dollar Arm
Neverwas
There neverwas a chance of this idea being turned into a good movie
Cloud Atlas
Robin Hood
Ready Player One
Juliet, Naked
I've never seen this movie but it's got Ethan Hawke, Rose Byrne and Chris O'dowd so I'm definitely gonna watch it. Lol
Tomb Raider
Little Italy
Love this movie for how terrible it is. My most favourite bad movie
Victory
Changeling
A great movie about an incredible true story: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Collins The real Christine Collins looked nothing like Angelina Jolie but the movie would not have been made with out her, hence the poster focussing on her!
Chapter 27
There Will Be Blood
"It's also the current IMDb cover pic for the film, while the previous one was one of the best film posters I've ever seen."
“What is the absolute worst font and layout I can use for this poster”
Watchmen
Thor: The Dark World
I’m a marvel fan so I’m a little biased but the only thing I see wrong with it is Jane Foster’s (woman in the middle) expression
I love how many of these are Nic Cage films - dude really is just out there taking any script that's waved in front of him. Love the guy, and some of his movies are awesome, but god he has made some absolute turds in his time!
It's a running joke I believe, like Sean Bean dying in every movie he's ever been in (not entirely true but you get it...)
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I love how many of these are Nic Cage films - dude really is just out there taking any script that's waved in front of him. Love the guy, and some of his movies are awesome, but god he has made some absolute turds in his time!
It's a running joke I believe, like Sean Bean dying in every movie he's ever been in (not entirely true but you get it...)
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