The Playlist:

Like trailers, movie posters are marketing materials to put butts in seats for movies and one could argue—with the fragmenting nature of streaming and the downtrends of movie theatergoing—that movie posters aren’t as important as they once were to pop culture and movie-going culture. That said, we still love ‘em, especially the artful, more visually dynamic ones that aren’t afraid to do more than put a bunch of floating heads on a poster to sell the cast of a movie.

Posters vary in quality, and obviously, many of the mainstream film ones are pretty basic, sometimes overtly colorful to the point of being garish, and don’t even get us get us started on characters posters (especially the ones for, like, the 10th character actor on the call sheet that while we love and all, might not really warrant a full poster to themselves). But there’s always beauty swimming against the tide of the generic deluge, and those are the ones that are always near and dear to our hearts.

I do always enjoy The Playlist’s annual roundup of the best movie posters of that year.