Film posters aren’t strictly necessary anymore. Films aren’t advertised in newspapers as much, only a handful of releases have the promotional budget for billboards and bus shelters, and trailers get far more traction. Yet they remain a constant – primarily because they’re eternally cool.
Movie posters sometimes get it wrong, though. Photoshop fails occur left, right and centre, while a lack of imagination plagues the artwork for even the most successful of modern franchises.
That’s why it’s so easy to put together some of the worst movie posters in recent memory. From a far too Brad Pitt-centric poster for 12 Years a Slave , to the time Marvel turned the Spider-Man cast into an amorphous blob of fire and shocked expressions, here are 21 of the most unpleasant.
Click through to gasp in horror at them all…
Show all 21
1 /21The worst movie posters ever
The worst movie posters ever
12 Years a Slave
Even today, Brad Pitt is the most famous cast member in 12 Years a Slave. But that still doesn’t justify the ghastly ill-judgment of placing him front-and-centre on the film’s Italian poster, particularly when he appears in it for maybe five minutes total.
Fox
The worst movie posters ever
The Heat
This poster came under fire upon release for its airbrushing of Melissa McCarthy, but that’s only one part of the carnage here. Even Sandra Bullock looks unusually waxy and sculpted via Photoshop, as if her features, sunglasses and hair have been cut-and-pasted from multiple different images.
Fox
The worst movie posters ever
Cuties
The film poster that kick-started one of the most volatile culture wars of 2020, Netflix’s misbegotten one-sheet for the French coming-of-age drama Cuties sparked protests and a parade of think pieces about apparent child sexualisation. It’s also a poster that’s impossible to defend. Lifted from the film sans context, it’s literally just a group of barely-dressed children in sexualised poses. Netflix apologised and quickly stopped using it, but it remains baffling that anyone thought this was a good idea in the first place.
Netflix
The worst movie posters ever
X-Men: First Class
You can sort of see what they were going for with this. It’s an effective, albeit clumsy, means of letting passers-by know that First Class revolves around younger versions of famous X-Men characters. In execution, though, it looks like Patrick Stewart is pregnant with James McAvoy’s floating head.
Fox
The worst movie posters ever
Victory
Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pelé – together at last! Unfortunately they play members of a Second World War football team in this 1981 drama, and not three men fused to one another in a science experiment gone terribly awry. Such false advertising.
Paramount
The worst movie posters ever
The Whole Ten Yards
This poster is a bit like modern Renaissance art, with each corner revealing something new and surprising. Where to begin? Is it Matthew Perry’s blurry stuck-on head? Kevin Pollak’s massive hands? The vacuum cleaner or the bunny slippers? Bruce Willis’s two… skirts? Are they skirts? Somehow the rooster is the least distracting thing here.
Warner Bros
The worst movie posters ever
Star Trek: The Voyage Home
Is the transporter beam in this poster rainbow-coloured because Spock and Kirk have landed in San Francisco? Is that also why every extra in the background could have been in the Village People? What is going on here?
Paramount
The worst movie posters ever
Spider-Man: Homecoming
“Floating head” posters, in which multiple cast members are precariously shoved onto a bit of promotional artwork, are incredibly commonplace today. So it’s almost impressive that this exhaustingly starry poster for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man reboot has stuck in memory for as long as it has. Trailed by jokes at its expense, it finds Tom Holland, Iron Man, Zendaya and practically half the Eastern SeaBoard engulfed in sparks and explosions.
Sony
The worst movie posters ever
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Equally overstuffed is the earlier one-sheet for this Avengers sequel. The complete abandonment of physical proportions is the worst offence here – from Robert Downey Jr’s strange baby-head to Captain America’s shield apparently being bigger than the Incredible Hulk.
Disney
The worst movie posters ever
Two Lovers
One of those quiet masterpieces that no one ever talks about, the intimate drama Two Lovers features Gwyneth Paltrow’s greatest performance and Joaquin Phoenix being subtle for a change. What it isn’t is a drab romcom about a trio of glowing people who look as if they’ve stumbled out of a video game.
Magnolia
The worst movie posters ever
All About Steve
Romantic comedies are notoriously difficult to condense down to a single movie poster – it’s partly why so many depict nothing but beautiful co-stars posing against a white backdrop. Something so devoid of imagination would have still been preferable to this, however. With Sandra Bullock maniacally cackling while holding an umbrella, and three men (including a pre-fame Bradley Cooper) looking on with apparent concern, it’s one of the most confusing posters in recent memory.
Fox
The worst movie posters ever
The Shaggy Dog
Pure nightmare fuel, starring a dog that is presumably inhabited by Tim Allen. No one can confirm because no one has seen this movie, probably because everyone ran for the hills at the sight of its poster.
Disney
The worst movie posters ever
Changeling
In which Angelina Jolie can’t find her missing son… presumably because she’s a giant and squished him and/or ate him for dinner.
Universal
The worst movie posters ever
Zyzzyx Road
In which giantess Katherine Heigl and her drawn-on chest rampages through the desert while tiny men attempt to defend themselves with guns and shovels.
GoDigital Media Group
The worst movie posters ever
Now You See Me 2
Ironically, Now You See Me 2 would have probably been a better movie if it was 90 minutes of Morgan Freeman calmly sinking to the bottom of the ocean while dressed impeccably.
Lionsgate
The worst movie posters ever
Ready Player One
No one has ever explained why Tye Sheridan has an incredibly long right leg in this poster.
Warner Bros
The worst movie posters ever
Tomb Raider
Similarly, the mystery over Alicia Vikander’s T-rex spine in this Photoshopped-to-hell-and-back Tomb Raider poster remains tragically unsolved.
MGM
The worst movie posters ever
Slap Her, She’s French
Because its title isn’t self-explanatory enough, the forgotten teen comedy Slap Her, She’s French goes all out with the visual aids for its poster – a beret, the French flag pom-poms and the Eiffel tower, plus an enormous hand for all the slapping that will presumably commence. It’s almost hypnotically terrible.
Universal
The worst movie posters ever
One Missed Call
This poster for a 2008 J-horror remake starring Shannyn Sossamon aspires for “grotesque nightmare” and winds up being just incredibly ugly.
Warner Bros
The worst movie posters ever
Amityville: The Awakening
From the silly usernames (“Rebelleous99”) to the cringeworthy attempts at Gen-Z irony (“looks haunted lol”), this one-sheet for Bella Thorne’s unsuccessful Amityville Horror reboot screams “fifty-something marketing executives striving to understand youth culture”.
Dimension
The worst movie posters ever
10 Cloverfield Lane
10 Cloverfield Lane is an unbearably tense thriller set in a bomb shelter, with John Goodman insisting that a captive Mary Elizabeth Winstead should be fearful of an unknown evil residing outside. So what did the film’s Australian distributor do for its poster? Why, entirely ruin the film’s final-act plot twist!
Paramount
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Check out our gallery of the 17 worst sex scenes in movie history, from Showgirls to Gigli , here .
