You have probably noticed that movie posters have many things in common. Let’s take a closer look at some popular trends and find out what they say about the film.

Tiny People On the Beach, Giant Heads in the Clouds

1

These movies are always sappy dramas. Do not allow you to be mislead by the trailer or calibre of the people involved into thinking otherwise. The protagonist/his little brother/father and/or love interest is very likely to end up dead. You probably should keep your tissues handy because you’ll cry tears of sorrow, tears of joy, tears because you just wasted 13 dollars on this movie. This sort of poster is inevitably used for anything that involves Nicholas Sparks.

Sexy Back (Most Likely to Contain Weaponry)

2

The movies that use this sort of poster will feature a lot of action with a thin veneer of pretentious intellectual posturing. Unless it’s a biopic about Johnny Cash.

Back to Back

3

These poster are used for rom-coms that lean more on the comedy side of things. You shall not go into these with high expectations, especially if you already spied Kate Hudson or Reese Witherspoon on the poster.

The Bed

4

The ultimate false advertising - these movies that use The Bed will feature very little sex and a lot of talking.

I’ve Got My Eye On You

5

There is 98 percent chance that these movies this will be horror. One way or the other.

Nature is Blue

6

7

Using blue/picture of planet Earth for nature-themed movies is apparently mandatory. They’ll kick you out of the entertainment business if you use any other color.

Black/Orange

8

Black/Orange is the other blue/orange of the action movie when the action movie isn’t using blue/orange. Just in case you forgot that there will be explosions.

Run For Your Life

9

Apparently all action heroes run through the same blue-lit, narrow alleyway when trying to escape/catch the bad guys. It’s also possible that graphic designers just re-use the same stock image of the running guy over and over again. The movies themselves are pretty similar to the Black/Orange ones except that all the explosions have been replaced with angst.

Legs Wide Spread

10

Unlike the Bed poster trend, not so much false advertising here. However of the 42 movies on display here, only one has any sort of critical acclaim. You do the math.

Is That Your Face Or Are the Drugs Kicking In?

11

You’ll notice the attempt of originality here even with theDali(NSFW) rip-off. This means that you’ll have to tread carefully here. It’s very likely that the filmmakers think they’re brilliant and original, regardless of reality.

The Red Dress Never Goes Out of Fashion

12

Women in red dresses are sexy and are going to sell tickets. It’s an enduring trend. Warning for the faint-of-heart: These movie will feature women in prominent roles. Maybe even downsized WHORES OF BABYLON.

The Rip-Off

13

These are supposed to either remind you of another (and much better) movie or outright trick you into believing you’re actually getting this other movie at the videostore.

Text In Your Face

14

This trend is fairly new, so this is basically a lot of bandwagon marketing. But in this case the typeface and the way it’s arranged on the poster at least gives you an idea of the amount of artistic pretention involved.