January 24, 2012

When Hollywood finds a formula that works they will reuse it until the end of time. Recently Tonya shared with us a website that takes a look at movie posters from the past. There are some strikingly similar design patterns.

Can you guess what these movies are all about?

These movies focus on a hot girl and some poor guy running after her. There will probably be at least one sex scene and a fair number of corny laughs.

If it’s a horror, what says scary more than a close up on an eyeball?!

Did you know that romantic comedy leading ladies should wear a red dress on their movie poster?
It’s true take a look at these examples.

And if you are a serious action film then a black and white poster with some flames is sure to do the trick.

For a thriller, it’s good to have someone running and if it’s down a street then it should be blue.

A comedic movie about a tough love relationship, romantic or otherwise, should have your two lead characters standing back to back.

If you are a big independent film and Hollywood is helping to distribute you then it is very likely that your movie will be yellow – super duper yellow.

And lastly my favorite, if you are doing a movie with Tom Cruise apparently he looks hunkiest in profile.

There you have it folks! We’ve all been trained by movie posters that within a split second you can tell what genre the movie fits into. Try it the next time you are standing in a movie ticket line. Don’t read the name of the movie, first take a quick look at the graphics and make a guess. I bet you’ll be right more times than you thought.

— Lauren Giovannoni

Movie Posters