The History of Film Posters

The First Movie Poster

• According to John Hazelton, a movie poster expert and dealer in Huntington, New York, the first movie poster ever made is believed to be an 1890 French lithograph printed by Jules Cheret to promote the short film "Projections Artistiques." Most of these early movie posters merely stated the film's name and related information, with little or no artwork.

American Movie Posters

• As American movie studios grew in the 1920s and 1930s, their marketing departments saw the value of movie posters as a way to entice the public to enter movie theaters. As a result, movie posters from the early 1900's to the 1950's feature stunning, colorful artwork that showcased the stars of the day and exotic locales.

The "One Sheet" Standard Movie Poster

• Most American movie posters from the 1920s until the 1980s were printed in a standard "one sheet" size, which usually measured 27 inches by 41 inches. Modern one sheets (1990 until the present) usually measure 27 inches by 40 inches, and thay are often printed double sided, for use in back lit theater poster frames.

Other Movie Poster Types

• Larger posters are often printed in the "one sheet" scale, including "two sheets," "three sheets," and a "twenty-four sheet" often used on billboards. Studios also printed other sizes of movie promotional materials, including window cards (14" x 22") and lobby cards (11" x 14"), but they were largely phased out in the 1980s.

Collecting Movie Posters

• Movie poster collecting is a popular hobby, and studios today often print extra posters of current movies just for the collector's market. Old and rare posters are very valuable; a 1935 "Bride of Frankenstein" poster (the only one of its kind) sold in a 2007 Heritage Gallery auction for over $334,000.

The Future of Movie Posters

• As costs of printing on paper rise, studios are printing fewer posters in lieu of promoting films online and television. Many theaters are replacing poster frames with video screens that can show posters digitally, so paper posters may soon be a thing of the past.