Whether you’re decorating a dorm room or your first apartment after moving out of a dorm room, you’re going to need movie posters.

Everybody loves a good movie poster. It’s like art, but it doesn’t require you to go to a musty museum, and sometimes it has Dustin Hoffman on it! Sometimes a poster gets you totally pumped for the movie it advertises, sometimes your love of the movie bleeds over into love of the poster’s images, and sometimes a poster is totally awesome in spite of the movie it’s shilling being a real turd. Posters! What fun!

Anyway, here are some of my favorites.

The Sexy

Click for big time imageThe Seven Year Itch, 1955
They’ve never come any sexier than Marilyn Monroe, and here she’s depicted at her most iconic. That’s Tom Ewell in the background, but it could be a burning Sasquatch doing the jitterbug and it’d be a long time before anybody noticed.

Click for big time imageAttack of the 50 Ft. Woman, 1958
Those people on the overpass are totally getting a look at the goods.

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The Sin of Nora Moran, 1933
I know you’ve never seen this flick; it’s a totally forgettable B thing from Majestic Pictures. But holy cow, what a poster.

The Simple

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Alien, 1979
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you don’t really know what you’re looking at on this poster, but its stark simplicity is irresistibly compelling anyway. And that tagline! For my money, it’s the greatest tagline in movie history.

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Scream, 1996
Who could not be drawn to this simple image of a terrified face. If it weren’t for the text at the top mucking things up a bit, this poster would be absolutely perfect.

Ghostbusters, 1984
I love, love, love this poster. Simple and right to the point. If fact, if you didn’t know it was advertising a movie, you might think it was a flier for a genuine ghostbusting service.

Frankenstein, 1931
An eerily colored monster face and the warning that he’s comin’ to get you is all it takes to sell you on this Universal horror classic. When you couple poster art this fantastic with the greatest monster picture ever made you’ve created an unstoppable force of excellence.

The Scary

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Rosemary’s Baby, 1968
The green is spooky. The giant staring head is unsettling. But before this poster, who would have thought a simple image of a baby carriage could be so sinister, so downright menacing.

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The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
Aaaaaaahhhh! That is so creepy! I was afraid of this when I was a kid and the movie came out, and I’m afraid of it now. Excuse me, I need to shower.

The Freakin’ Awesome

Casablanca, 1942
Look at all those actors you love. That bright, bold splash of red contrasting with the black and white images. For me, this is the very essence of the 1940s movie poster.

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MASH, 1970
Without using picturess of the actors or scenes from the movie, the poster for MASH is nonetheless instantly and forever memorable, thanks to the creation of an image that had never been seen before: that weird, helmet-wearing hand-legs thing.

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Jaws, 1975
If you can look at this poster and not hear that “dun-dun dun-dun” music in your head, then something is fucked up with you, that’s all I’m saying.

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The Graduate, 1967
Check out that utterly bored look on Dustin Hoffman’s face, in total opposition to the sexiness going on in the leggy foreground. An indelible image and a classic movie.

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The Phantom Menace, 1999
Yes, even a terribly shitty movie can produce a quality poster, as this teaser for the release of Star Wars: Episode I proves. Think back to when this poster went up, Star Wars fans. Could any image possibly have gotten you more pumped for the prequels? Have you ever been as pumped for any movie as you were for The Phantom Menace, thanks to this picture of an innocent little boy casting a big bad shadow? Also, it was probably more effective as an advertisement for the film than a sign reading “Please do not see this movie, it sucks and has a character named Jar Jar that you are really going to hate, trust me.”

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