We’ll take a deep dive into the biggest poster design trends for 2024, from the revival of retro poster styles to surrealist designs.
In 2024, we’ve already seen some fantastic poster designs created ahead of major movie releases, including stylish poster designs for The Killer, Joker: Folie à Deux, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Here, we’ll uncover the design secrets behind these striking movie poster designs, and provide plenty of drool-worthy poster inspiration along the way.
What Are the Movie Poster Trends for 2024?
With superhero movies reportedly on the downturn (if the box office flop Madame Web was anything to go by), the style of blockbuster movie posters is starting to move away from the comic book styling and 3D typography that’s been dominant over the last decade.
Into 2024 and beyond, we’re beginning to see more creativity, independent edge, and unusual concepts seeping into movie posters, making for much more interesting and dynamic poster designs.
Below, we’ll look at some of the movie poster design ideas and creative trends behind some of these cutting-edge poster designs, exploring the five core poster trends below in more detail:
Read on to find out how to achieve these movie poster trends in your own film poster designs, and discover inspirational movie posters from now and past decades along the way.
This collage inspired by the iconic Rosemary’s Baby movie poster uses images via Stokkete, Lenkaden, and Krakenimages.com.
1. Retro Revival
It always pays to look ahead in the fast-paced world of cinema and streaming, but it’s also interesting to note how many contemporary movie posters pay tribute to poster designs from earlier decades.
Poster designers often look to the retro blockbuster styling of 1980s movie posters or the iconic posters of 1960s New Wave cinema, in part to boost the nostalgic appeal of a film, as well as to revisit tried-and-tested, effective poster techniques.
Posters for upcoming indie La Chimera (2024) and anticipated tennis romance Challengers (2024) are accompanied by poster campaigns with a distinctly vintage look and feel.
Painterly imagery of lead characters and hand-doodled illustrations lend the movie poster for La Chimera, an Indiana Jones-meets-Fellini air that merges nostalgic poster style with artistic craft.
For Luca Guadagnino-directed Challengers (2024), a super close-up of lead actor Zendaya is given a nostalgic 1980s boost with airbrush textures, reflective sunglasses, and ’80s-approved purple. All very Risky Business (1983).
In your own movie poster designs, you can tap into the retro aesthetic by keeping imagery flat and matte, avoiding too much gloss or 3D texture, and translating photography into illustrated paintings with Photoshop filters or grainy noise textures.
For serious style, look to the New Wave movie poster styles of the 1950s and ’60s, which favored graphic photo collages, simple color palettes, and bold typography. We love illustrator Matt Talbot’s alternative poster for Mad Max: Fury Road, which pays simple and striking tribute to the New Wave style.
Clockwise from top-left: Matt Talbot‘s tribute poster design for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015); the official movie poster designs for Challengers (2024) and La Chimera (2024).
2. Epic Ensemble
Although superhero movies may be on the wane, the poster technique of bringing a large number of characters together into a stylish ensemble is not going anywhere in 2024.
This epic style arranges the characters and details of movie scenes into a holistic image, allowing studios to showcase a starry cast and creating a character-driven world for movie goers before they even watch the film.
You will also notice on ensemble movie posters how the characters are arranged purposefully, into a triangular, circular, or diagonal form, giving the poster a single graphic form even with a large number of different elements.
For your own movie poster design ideas, arranging headshots around the perimeter of a triangle or circle on the poster is a simple yet effective technique for bringing balance to a poster design. In many poster examples, the lead character is also given greater prominence, drawing the eye to the star of the movie.
You can see this epic ensemble design technique in action this year on the posters for Dune 2 (2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), and La Chimera (2024), but it is a long-established poster design style that can also be seen on iconic artwork for The Goonies (1985), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
Clockwise from top-left: The movie poster artwork for Dune 2 (2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) all make use of the epic ensemble design style.
3. Take a Closer Look
Take your poster viewers into the heart of the movie with a super close-up poster design. A macro-view of a character’s face or a key object or scene from a film is a fantastic design strategy for heightening the emotional impact of a movie poster.
A commonly used design style for horror movies or psychological films, macro photos or zoomed in photography has a unique way of sucking the viewer into a character’s emotional state, whether it be fear, excitement, or wonder.
For this movie poster design idea, you’ll need super high-resolution photography that allows you to scale the image with flexibility, allowing for crisp and clear results at even large poster or billboard sizes. Explore high-definition portrait photography to find your perfect close-up.
Recent movie posters that use close-up imagery include Beetlejuice 2 (2024) and the psychological science fiction film, The Beast (2024). You can also see this poster design style in use on the promotional materials for horror movie Immaculate (2024), which draws no doubt intentional comparisons to the classic movie poster design for Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
Above: The movie posters for Beetlejuice 2 (2024) and The Beast (2024) use macro close-ups to create an immersive effect for the viewer.
Above: The movie poster for Immaculate (2024) traces a clear stylistic line back to the iconic poster design for Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
This collage inspired by the Star Wars movie franchise uses images via Stokkete and Sarunyu L.
4. Surrealism
Perhaps it’s the Wes Anderson effect, but in cinema a little off-beat quirk is now box office gold. Abstract indie films, dreamlike dramas, and magical realism movies—such as Oscar-winner Poor Things (2023)—have ushered in a new era of surreal cinema, and movie poster design is starting to catch up to this eccentric film trend.
A wave of ethereal posters promising something a little different from the norm for cinema audiences has hit theater foyers and social media marketing campaigns, and the surrealist movie trend looks set to only gather pace into the near future.
Call it the arthouse effect, but the surrealist style is brilliant news for fans of movie poster designs who can look forward to posters that bridge the gap between commercial marketing and graphic art.
The unnerving poster design for animated horror Stopmotion (2024) looks like something straight out of a René Magritte painting. A similar effect can be achieved in your own designs by layering imagery to create a double exposure effect.
The poster artwork for Problemista (2024) explores surrealist style traits from a more light-hearted angle, drawing inspiration from Dalí and surreal cartoonscapes.
Some of the most memorable and iconic poster designs of all time have a surrealist style, such as the unforgettable artwork for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Apolcalypse Now (1979).
So, why should you choose surrealism for your movie poster designs? These intriguing puzzle-posters boast memorability and intrigue by the bucketload, giving viewers a tantalizingly mysterious taster of what the movie might be about.
Clockwise from top left: The movie poster designs for Stopmotion (2024), Problemista (2024), Beekeeper (2024), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) all feature surrealist styles or references.
5. Bold Type
While movie posters traditionally have often prioritized imagery over type, to showcase the characters or scenes of a movie, some of the most effective modern poster designs use bold type to really make a cinematic statement.
The advantage of using prominent typography on a poster design is that the title of the movie becomes all-important, boosting the memorability and recall of the film title.
This is particularly important in the context of searching for movies on streaming services, and stylized typography has certainly become a core strategy for platforms like Netflix to distinguish movies from each other and forge an instant connection with a potential viewer.
Striking examples of bold type on recent movie poster designs include Civil War (2024), which uses a variation of ITC Avant Garde Gothic set in anarchic and alarming green neon to create a militaristic effect.
David Fincher’s The Killer (2023) also uses a distinctive typography strategy to draw attention to the movie title, featuring a horizontal, dispatched “i” to draw parallels with the lead character’s unsavory day job.
Teaser posters for Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) also feature the franchise’s distinctive grungy type title, with condensed lettering and jaunty, unhinged lettering.
For your own movie poster design projects, bold type is a strong and striking strategy that translates well across other marketing media and poster sizes, allowing the designer to build a cohesive “brand” around a distinctive movie title.
Look for display fonts that can be subtly adjusted with the addition of textures, customized letterforms, or eye-catching color.
Clockwise from top left: Distinctive typography at work on the movie poster designs for Joker: Folie a Deux (2024), The Killer (2023), Civil War (2024), and Dune 2 (2024).
Movie Poster Design Ideas for Future Classics
Some of the most memorable and distinctive movie poster designs use unexpected design techniques to draw and hold a viewer’s attention, such as surrealist photography or creative typography.
Other movie poster styles have a tried-and-tested formula that never fails to attract cinema audiences, the epic ensemble design style being a notable example.
In your own movie poster designs, don’t be afraid to experiment with unusual and creative design styles. With high-impact imagery, distinctive movie titling, and dramatic color choices, you can’t fail to create a movie poster design that may well go down as a future classic.
For more cinematic design inspiration, look to these inspirational articles and tutorials:
License these images from this cover collage via Stokkete, Lenkaden, and Krakenimages.com.
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