The 20 Best Movie Posters Of 2016

10. “Jackie”
There’s a slight sense that the marketing for “Jackie” is selling a much more conventional famous-woman biopic than Pablo Larrain‘s film actually is, but that’s maybe a debate for another time. What’s inarguable is that this stunning poster may be classical in form, but it’s so exquisitely precise in its design that it becomes, like the woman herself, instantly iconic. The blood-red-on-blood-red treatment is bold, the use of Jackie’s (slightly modified) signature suggests a personal, intimate portrait while the styling of Portman, in an outfit, hairstyle and pose similar to that in Jackie Kennedy’s White House Tour TV program, is close to immaculate.

9. “The Birth of a Nation”
Perhaps it’s the fraught political climate but riffs on the stars and stripes have been a feature of many of this year’s poster campaigns, from Ava DuVernay’s “The 13th,” to the alternate poster for Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” to Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey.” But probably the most provocative was this image for Nate Parker‘s Sundance-hit-turned-scandal-plagued-bete-noire. It’s very reminiscent of Jay Shaw’s wonderful Criterion cover illustration for Nashville, and we can’t find much detail on the designer, but if this is the product of Fox Searchlight‘s publicity team, it’s a pretty remarkable image, as was the “Noose” execution, which in the aftermath of Parker’s rape trial revelations is so thick with layers of controversy it’s actually quite hard to look at now.

8. “Wiener-Dog”
Droll, quirky, colorful and deadpan, this Canyon Design group poster for Todd Solondz‘ rambling picaresque is everything we hoped the movie would be and were disappointed it wasn’t. Or to be fair, it wasn’t consistently those things: its unevenness means that maybe roughly half of the film was great, and perhaps we’re reading too much into it, but maybe that’s why we only got half a dog (and the ass end at that)?

7. “Certain Women”
Kelly Reichardt‘s considered, precise triptych film gets a beautifully refined poster treatment from IFC films (we can’t find information on the illustrator anywhere, please let us know if you can), which cleverly gets to have its cake and eat it — the faces of its famous cast are all there, with major box office draw Kristen Stewart front and center, but the soft-pencil-style portraiture and the gray-and-cream palette also evokes the enigmatic, thoughtful film’s reserve.

6. “Paterson”
Considering the film’s moral about the consolations of routine and finding beauty in the everyday, the U.S. campaign for Jim Jarmusch‘s low-key Cannes darling is surprisingly uninspired. Much closer to the mark is this German poster (we presume it must have been commissioned by German distributor Weltkino) which not only riffs on classic travel posters of old, but also subtly references the artwork of Ohio Blue Tips Matches that are a recurring motif. In fact, were it not for the fact that it does slightly unfortunately imply that Golshifteh Farahani is playing a dog, we’d say this version is pretty much perfect.