A movie poster is more than just an announcement of an upcoming film. It has to awaken your interest, hook you in, and make you curious enough to go and see the movie. To put it simply, posters have the task of selling the film to you in just one image. But with time, they have grown beyond this goal as well.
Some of the best movie posters have inspired a whole aesthetic of decorating your home or place of business, especially coffee shops and bakeries. It’s always fun to enter someone’s house or a new cafe and try to count how many of the displayed movies you have seen. You can also tell a lot about the owner’s taste in cinema based on the posters they display. Vintage movie posters have even become valuable collectibles, with cinephiles all over the world trying to get rare posters into their possession.
But while great movie posters are a form of art of their own, things happen, and bad movie posters also come to exist. Why do they happen? Reasons may vary from somebody just being a bad designer to not really knowing what the movie is about. Why such movie posters get approved is a whole different story, but at least they provide us with a reason to laugh, especially if you have actually seen the movie.
In this article you will find quite a few examples of bad poster design. Which one looks the ugliest to you? Don’t forget to vote for it. Share this article with your friends, and show us in the comments other strange, unappealing, or downright bad movie posters you have seen.
#1 Cujo
“The Ghanaian poster for Cujo is possibly amazing instead.”
Image source: amazon.com, OldManSimms
#2 Star Wars
“Russian poster for Star Wars is crazy. Darth Vader is a cat.”
Image source: amazon.com, Flint_Vorselon
#3 Top Dog
Flint_Vorselon replied:
“Please tell me the dog was the brains of the operation.”
Image source: amazon.com, Legit_YG
#4 The Penthouse
Prince-of-Ravens replied:
“Pretty sure every single thing in that poster comes from a stock photo site.”
Image source: imdb.com, reddit.com
#5 Going Overboard
whendoesOpTicplay replied:
“Is it supposed to look like he’s in the Sims?”
Image source: amazon.com, 69_420
#6 Spanish Poster For Chef Movie
User No 1 replied:
“Jesus. I couldn’t even recall Robert Downey Jr. being in Chef. Was he in it for like a single scene or something?”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#7 X-Men: First Class
SUBLIMINAL__MESSAGES replied:
“It should’ve just been the silhouettes, the faces are such a horrendous idea they should’ve never made it past the planning phase.”
Image source: amazon.com, mabromov
#8 Grown UPS 2
FireTigerThrowdown replied:
“Wonderful posters. Hurr durr, grown men sure are infantile manchildren while women are joyless mother figures.”
Image source: amazon.com, poopfeast
#9 Finding Normal
“I don’t even remember where I saw this, but it took me no time at all to realize it’s the worst one I’ve ever seen.”
Image source: amazon.com, freeman528491
#10 My Ghost Dog
“I work in health care and some of the movies that we get are these christian movie house films to show to elderly or kids and you’re just like “Dude this movie looks like it’ll make them feel worse.” So we always end up buying the latest movies and keeping them in rotation for people to watch.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#11 Left Behind
criminalsunrise replied:
“That looks like Nicholas Cage’s face on John Travolta’s body… hold on, that’d make a great film!”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#12 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Image source: amazon.com
#13 Love Never Dies
becauseican95 replied:
“The poster’s bad. The title’s worse.”
Image source: amazon.com, thedanyon
#14 The Other Woman
Image source: amazon.com
#15 Blonde And Blonder
Image source: amazon.com
#16 Hit By Lightning
DQ11 replied:
“Still though it is almost worth mentioning twice.
3 very obvious separate pictures attempted to be pieced together + fake gun arm… just odd. Somebody got paid money for this… and then probably got another job after, and got paid for that too.”
Image source: amazon.com, thatmovieperson
#17 Zyzzyx Road
jer706 replied:
“This movie grossed a total of literally $30 in the box office on a $1.2 million budget.”
Image source: amazon.com, PulpFiction1232
#18 Shaggy The Dog
“They put his eyes on a dog and it’s just creepy.”
Image source: amazon.com, midnight_riddle
#19 The Accidental Husband
isorx0932 replied:
“Please tell me this isn’t real. Was this done in Microsoft paint?”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#20 Cook Off
Image source: amazon.com
#21 Good Luck Chuck
“Everything about this poster is wrong.”
Image source: amazon.com, daredevil09
#22 The Bling Ring
“Font and letter spacing is shocking.”
Image source: amazon.com, tohood99
#23 Kangaroo Jack
Image source: amazon.com, GlitchHippy
#24 Contraband
“Mark Wahlberg looks like he is scratching his back and doing a terrible job of hiding the money strapped to his waist.”
Image source: amazon.com, LundgrensFrontKick
#25 Zookeeper
Image source: amazon.com
#26 The Fall
Image source: amazon.com
#27 Chairman Of The Board
Image source: amazon.com, menacetoosobriety
#28 A Good Day To Die Hard
pitaenigma replied:
“I will not have that movie spoken ill of. It is the world’s greatest nap movie. I have never sat through it without falling asleep ten minutes in, and waking up to a helicopter exploding is glorious. I fell asleep to it in movie theaters, I fell asleep to it when I pirated it, and I fell asleep to it when it was on TV. I never fall asleep to movies, but that film is fucking Nyquil to me. So don’t talk ill about it. I’m an insomniac and this is the only cure.”
Image source: amazon.com, shakedatbooty
#29 Avengers: Age Of Ultron
User No 1 said:
“It’s pretty much a running joke by now that Marvel team up movies have bad posters. Nothing to qualify as the worst by any measure, but just completely uninspired photoshop hack jobs. The solo movies tend to have decent ones, but the Avengers movies and Civil War had some bad ones.”
A_Dog_Chasing_Cars replied:
“I’m especially amused by this Age of Ultron one.
‘Boss, who do we put on the poster?’
‘Everyone!'”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#30 Spider-Man 3
“Looks like it was made by a guy just learning Photoshop.”
Image source: amazon.com, Delta_Assault
#31 Heartbreakers
Image source: amazon.com
#32 Russell Madness
masterobiwan replied:
“Oh gosh. I saw a trailer for that the other day.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#33 Meet The Deedles
Image source: amazon.com, TheFartasticVoyage
#34 Spider-Man: Homecoming
Image source: amazon.com
#35 One Missed Call
Image source: amazon.com
#36 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Image source: amazon.com
#37 Takers
rocker2014 said:
“Worst photoshopped poster ever.”
Blinkskij replied:
“I love Idris Elba, but I’m fairly sure he’s not an actual light source.”
VictorBlimpmuscle also replied:
“Paul Walker’s head looks like it’s photoshopped onto a black man’s neck.”
Image source: amazon.com/, rocker2014
#38 Breakin’ All The Rules
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#39 All About Steve
Image source: amazon.com
#40 Carpool
Image source: amazon.com
#41 Corky Romano
Image source: amazon.com
#42 Grudge Match
“There’s one for a film called something like Grudge Match, with an incredibly poorly photoshopped De Niro and Stallone on it. That one is a big contender for me.”
Image source: amazon.com, uberduger
#43 The Trust
sunshinecid replied:
“Why are Elijah Wood’s hands SO big?”
Image source: amazon.com, Dcoil1
#44 Stolen
jumpbreak5 replied:
“Still blows my mind that this movie actually happened. It really does look like it was based on a photoshopped movie poster made by a redditor.”
Image source: amazon.com, FancyShrimp
#45 Exodus: Gods And Kings
whendoesOpTicplay replied:
“I feel like it was a poor attempt at hiding that the “Egyptians” were being played by two white dudes.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#46 Sniper: Special Ops
Image source: amazon.com, IOnlyKnow5Words ·
#47 Magic In The Moonlight
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#48 Date Movie
Image source: amazon.com
#49 Mamas’s Boy
Redditor said:
“I can’t believe that I saw the movie, it makes me despise Jon Heder.”
Cyclops_ replied:
“I like Jon Heder. I feel like I must see this. I believe it’ll be terrible, and not in the cool way. I feel like I vaguely remember it coming out, but then again I can’t even imagine one shot.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#50 Fifth Element
“Was talking to my brother and he threw this bomb at me, Fifth Element Movie Poster.”
Image source: amazon.com, sunshinecid
#51 The Whole Ten Yards
Image source: amazon.com, Chugbeef
#52 Heavy Petting
PedosoKJ replied:
“How hard would it have been to get the dog to lick her face?”
Image source: amazon.com, lanayaya
#53 Shelter
Image source: amazon.com
#54 I Am Wrath
dugpdcv said:
“Damn, the guy looks like Liam Hemsworth on the poster.”
Afrasher replied:
“Looks like they photoshopped the top half of John Travolta’s face onto the body of Arnie’s Terminator.”
Image source: amazon.com, dugpdcv
#55 USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
Hoogs replied:
“Nic looks about 80 years old in that photo.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#56 Bangkok Dangerous
“Whats his arm doing, looks like he’s doing a bad magic trick & also FLAMES & stuff.”
Image source: amazon.com, tohood99
#57 Jack Reacher
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#58 Daddy Day Care
PineappleSlices replied:
“Watch how many children I can fit up my a**.”
Image source: amazon.com, gifmaker777
#59 Killers
Image source: amazon.com
#60 The Heat
Image source: amazon.com
#61 Gulliver’s Travels
Image source: amazon.com
#62 Street Kings
Image source: amazon.com
#63 The Blue Lagoon
Image source: amazon.com
#64 The Last Song
Image source: amazon.com
#65 The Babysitter
Image source: amazon.com
#66 Rhinestone
Image source: imdb.com
#67 Brother Nature
Image source: amazon.com
#68 The Wonder Boys
“This poster is totally laughable.”
Image source: amazon.com, willianswalker
#69 Bad Teacher
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#70 Million Dollar Arm
Image source: amazon.com
#71 Neverwas
Image source: amazon.com, zeebs758
#72 Cloud Atlas
Image source: amazon.com, GlitchHippy
#73 Robin Hood
Image source: amazon.com
#74 Ready Player One
Image source: amazon.com
#75 Juliet, Naked
Image source: amazon.com
#76 Tomb Raider
Image source: amazon.com
#77 Little Italy
Image source: amazon.com
#78 Victory
Image source: amazon.com
#79 Changeling
Image source: amazon.com
#80 Chapter 27
Image source: amazon.com
#81 Mickey Blue Eyes
Image source: amazon.com
#82 There Will Be Blood
“It’s also the current IMDb cover pic for the film, while the previous one was one of the best film posters I’ve ever seen.”
Image source: amazon.com, Frozen_Plains
#83 Watchmen
Image source: amazon.com, pitaenigma
#84 Push
Image source: amazon.com
#85 Thor: The Dark World
Image source: amazon.com
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