If you're looking for art to decorate your walls, film posters, old and new, are a good start. Start by picking your favorite movie or television show but don't stop there. One option is to pick the foreign poster. The ones shown here are from well-known movies. Can you guess which ones? The answers, and more about using film posters as art, after the jump...
- Go for a poster from the foreign release of the film: the images used abroad are often different, and more graphic, than the ones used in the States. Plus its fun to watch your guests try and figure out what film it is and how the title is translated into another language.
- Start with the standard size: black metal frames are available inexpensively at places like Aaron Brothers.
- Then try the other sizes: The large version, known as "bus stop size," can be quite dramatic anchoring a living room or used in a bedroom as a headboard (the one in my home is bus stop size). Lobby cards can be hung in multiples.
- Old films are another bet: Posters from many of the more popular films have been re-released. AllPosters is one good resource. Your local frame store may already have a couple of framed movie posters in stock.
- Obscure films and original posters will be more expensive. Many of these are collector's items. If you purchase them from a reputable place, many will have been mounted on canvas to preserve them.
- When buying posters, check if they have been rolled or folded. Many of the older posters were folded; check the folds for signs of wear, tear and fading.
Did you guess correctly?
- Alien (Poland)
- Weekend at Bernie's (Poland)
- Big (Czech Republic)
- The Fly (Poland)
- Planet of the Apes (Poland)
- Down By Law (Poland)
- The Shaggy Dog (Poland)
- The Great Race (Poland)
- Shane (Poland)
- Star Wars (Poland)
- Blade Runner (Poland)
The rest are from Polish Poster with obvious English titles, but just as stylishly impressive
[images via: Cracked.com]
Poland has an amazingly rich tradition of posters for films and other events. Thanks for posting this!
view fabframes's profile
The story is that a lot of times the designer would design the poster without seeing the film first. That's why a lot of these posters from Czech Republic and Poland seem so out there. Polish and Czech posters have gone considerably up in price in the last 5 years, by the way.
eBay is still your best bet if you want to find an original poster for a reasonable price (I'd say eBay is 10%-30% cheaper than film poster galleries, Posteritati in NYC being the most overpriced among them).
view Molunat's profile
Czech posters are also amazing. You can find plenty of both on ebay for reasonable prices, as well as from posteritati.com and polishposter.com.
I've found that typically, the more obscure the movie the cheaper the poster (at least as far as the 300 posters i've collected are concerned). Posters from iconic movies are usually the priciest (I'm still looking for a Polish verison of The Birds for under 3k).
view modfodder's profile
Posteritati is typically more expensive, but they also carry posters that are hard to find elsewhere (and I often find myself bidding against them on ebay). Emovieposter.com can also be a great source (he used to sell on ebay, but moved over to his own auction site).
And Molunat is correct about the poster market, even the past two years prices have exploded and unlike real estate, have not started to drop back down to earth. With that being said, it's still easy to find some great designs, spending anywhere from $20-150, excluding framing. Check out the polish circus posters as well.
view modfodder's profile
possibly not as specific to movies, but extremely varied and reasonable is art.com
i've had great results with hanging posters in series of two or three, and i've found that the trick to them not looking cheap or dorm-like is to frame them in identical frames. for a long time (until i recently got sick of them) i had a series of 3 vintage ads hanging in my dining room, all framed in thick black frames. they looked great.
to glam it up even a little more, do the same thing but get the frames larger than you need them and mat the posters inside. if the standard mat size doesn't work, i know michael's cuts custom mats for $40 a piece, which could yield you some very sharp looking artwork for not very much.
view honey living's profile
how cool is that! i've always known that poland has an awesome tradition of graphic design, cinematography and some fantastic art schools but to see it here - woohoo! both my parents and my in-laws have some gorgeous theatre and film posters. i guess i need to do some begging for a poster of my very own.
view the polish chick's profile
The first thing I ever bought from someone on the internet (pre-ebay, I'm old) was the Belgian version of the poster for Lawrence of Arabia. It was a hulluva lot cheaper than the English version, and makes for a more interesting conversation piece. I had no idea I was being trendy ;-)
view margie's profile
I would recommend Kinoart (in Europe) and mpagallery (in Jersey), because of the fair pricing and, of course, reelposter gallery in London for their collection.
view Molunat's profile
For those in the Santa Fe area, there is a lovely gallery of foreign posters on Canyon Road.
view anaximander's profile
Any poster collectors out there have tips on framing linen-backed posters and having them stay flat? I have a fairly valuable Polish poster which is linen-backed and I had it framed with "preservation mounting" (basically, it can be removed without damage, preserving the poster's value), but it's driving me crazy that it doesn't look completely flat. I guess I'm used to the super flat look of drymounted stuff. A few poster forums mentioned stretching the linen on a frame (like you would do with a painting). Has anyone else had experience with this? I would love to hear about it.
view Lucy (SF Bay Area)'s profile
Also, for those looking to buy posters, I second modfodder that, in general, the more obscure the poster the better the price. Also, if the poster is obscure you can pretty much bet that no one has reprinted it -- and if having an original poster is important to you that's a great thing. You can therefore bid freely on ebay for "original poster Art House Film X" without worrying that you're buying a copy, whereas if you were bidding on "Original Breakfast at Tiffany's poster" that would be a BIG concern.
view Lucy (SF Bay Area)'s profile
What would be a good search on e-bay for posters like these?
"Poland Movie Posters" didnt come up with anything, so I thought Id ask here
view Captainspaceship's profile