Downloadable movie posters from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s

(hrc.contentdm.oclc.org)

340 points | by bookofjoe 8 days ago ago

66 comments

  • fennec-posix 5 minutes ago

    Only been able to find one movie that was done on Mystery Science Theater 3000:

    The Beatniks: https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll...

  • rawgabbit 7 hours ago
    • peterhajas an hour ago
      • rawgabbit an hour ago

        Thanks for the correct link.

    • datahack 32 minutes ago

      I always wondered if the south by southwest conference was an homage to this movie somehow.

      Great finds.

    • noir_lord 7 hours ago

      They have Day of the Triffids and The Omega Man as well - it's a neat collection, I've spent a couple of years not deciding what I want on the walls of my home office but some of those kitsch older sci-fi posters are a strong candidate - I saw a fair few of them as a kid.

    • Barbing 4 hours ago

      >Goldfinger

      “Miss” Galore they say :)

      Apparently leaking her name to the press prevented big wigs from forcing it to be changed.

    • garbuhj 5 hours ago

      The ten commandments link just opens the other poster again

    • eterm 7 hours ago

      Weird, the date and "National Screen Service Number" on North by Northwest is wrong, it's showing 1949 instead of 1959.

      • boomboomsubban 6 hours ago

        I'm assuming entries were done by hand, aa I've noticed a couple typos in my casual browsing.

  • shermantanktop 5 hours ago

    If you’re ever in Manhattan and you like this stuff, I recommend https://www.posterhouse.org/

    Fantastic graphic art and poster museum. Not focused on movies per se but we had a great time there.

    • asah 4 hours ago

      +1000 every time I swing by PH I'm impressed. Unlike other NYC museums, there's never a line and you can be in/out in 30-45mins. Also, located on 23rd st right near 3 subway stations serving a slew of lines. It's a regular stop when I have a few minutes to kill on my way to other things.

  • layer8 7 hours ago
  • d99kris 8 hours ago

    On a vaguely related note, two accomplished film poster artists passed away in the past month: Renato Casaro [1] and Drew Struzan [2].

    [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renato_Casaro

    [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Struzan

  • ssenssei 8 hours ago

    I was looking to add a few posters to my room, and this came at the right time. The only one that interested me was: Colossus: The Forbin Project, as I love Michael Colombier's OST in that. Other than that, it's hard for me as a 23-year-old to find movies I've seen here. The earliest I can think of is Indiana Jones, and The Rocketeer, and those are in the 90s.

    • andrehacker 41 minutes ago

      ++ for reference to "Colossus: The Forbin Project"

      I only discovered that film about a decade ago, and it quickly became a favorite.

      What’s wild is how it’s shifted from pure sci-fi to something that feels eerily plausible, especially with how tech has evolved in just the last five years.

      Colossus: In time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love. Dr. Forbin: NEVER!

      Never ?

    • mrep 4 hours ago

      You can just google image search the poster, save the image, upload it to a poster printing website and print it.

      I've done it 9 times and I've even gotten a 10 x 5 foot poster made of the park city ski map.

      • kingforaday 4 hours ago

        Recommendation on a solid online printing shop?

        • throwanem 3 hours ago

          Bay Photo, https://bayphoto.com. Good prices, great service; I use them for my own work, at sizes beyond what I can do in my own shop. Next time they disappoint will be the first.

    • berkes 5 hours ago

      The first Indiana Jones was released in 1981. Still not 70's but it has stood the time pretty well. Maybe except for some special effects.

    • ghaff 7 hours ago

      I'm fairly familiar with films and I would say a lot of that is relatively obscure. I've certainly seen some but definitely a minority.

    • cormullion 4 hours ago

      The poster for Colossus:Forbin was very disappointing. The title sequence graphics for the movie were great - but the poster doesn’t show a computer at all, although the movie is all about them.

  • sfblah an hour ago

    How can I have a rotating version of this in a poster-sized digital frame in the easiest possible way?

  • noefingway 4 hours ago

    Very cool stuff. Brings back a lot of memories from my youth spent in movie theaters on Saturday afternoons watching the sci-fi/horror double features. I have several posters printed by the S2 Art Group (they used to have their lithograph machine in the Paris hotel in Las Vegas), one of my favorites: https://www.cinemasterpieces.com/62014/s2frankteaser.jpg the eyes follow you everywhere.

  • JKCalhoun 9 hours ago

    This reminds me, so many films, so little time.

    I confess, I like the style of a lot of the earlier movie posters.

    • bdz 9 hours ago

      >so many films, so little time

      I've started watching one film every day 3 years ago. Much less time investment than one would imagine. It all comes down to finding a good system to plan what to watch not just sit down and have an analysis paralysis. Once (after a few months) I’ve figured out my current plan where I _have to_ watch certain films it became incredibly easy to keep up.

      • JKCalhoun 3 hours ago

        There's the "1001 Movies to See Before You Die", the "AFI 100"…

        Neither of these are bad lists to start with. The "AFI 100" is going to be all American films (some Hitchcock films get a pass because they were filmed in the U.S.?).

        "1001 Movies…" has a number of film critics contributing — and all the usual suspects are on the list. Fortunately it includes a good deal of foreign films, silent films, art-house films… So it covers a larger gamut of course.

        The wife and I are now up to the 1980's and finishing up a Turkish film from 1982. I suppose we're 5 years into this, perhaps a couple years still before we've done the 1000.

        Why go in order? Partly context — you can see how films have "evolved", see when new ideas show up. But also there is some pragmatism: if left to my own devices, skipping around, I might leave until last the silent films, the French New Wave (sorry, I've been only slowly coming to enjoy them), the several-hours-long films, Warhol's films, etc.

      • ghaff 7 hours ago

        The nice thing about films is that they're generally pretty much self-contained. A lot of modern TV series are serialized and committing to a multi-season set of episodes is a big chunk of time.

        • bdz 5 hours ago

          Yeah I could never really get into any TV show at all for this very reason

      • pwython 7 hours ago

        So now having watched over 1k movies in the past 3 years, what are you favorites?

        • JKCalhoun 3 hours ago

          (I know you didn't ask me.)

          To pick a decade, the 1930's surprised me with a number of good films that I had not seen. It's also the first "modern" decade in a sense — the films are starting to have the kind of narrative you expect from a film (and have sound).

          "Love Me Tonight" (1932), "Stella Dallas" (1937) were new to me and enjoyable.

          It was the era of the classic big-spectacle Hollywood dance numbers that I knew of but had not seen. These greats from 1933 alone: "42nd Street", "Footlight Parade", "Gold Diggers of 1933".

          Fritz Lang's "M" (1931) if you have not seen it. The infamous "Freaks" (1932) that, by its reputation, I thought would disturb me more than it did. "Captain Blood" and the "The Adventures of Robin Hood" are Errol Flynn in his prime…

          Bonus link: Ginger Rogers in the classic opening to "Gold Diggers" — and her impromptu Pig Latin verse: https://youtu.be/UJOjTNuuEVw

        • bdz 5 hours ago

          Honestly there are just too many good ones, I could give a list of at least 50 films I'd recommend without any hesitation at all. But I try to watch as little Hollywood as possible, mostly asian and european cinema.

          Right now I'd say Tokyo Story (1953) is the best film I've ever seen.

          • skylurk 17 minutes ago

            > Tokyo Story

            I watched it because it's on every list of best films, so expectations going in were high. It's not overrated. I don't cry from movies but I did when watching this one. Very subtle and relatable.

            Edit: Since we're here, "The Fall" (2006) and "City of God" (2002) are some of my other favorites.

        • layer8 7 hours ago

          It’s all a blur. ;)

          (not the OP)

    • ghaff 7 hours ago

      I'm not sure that art deco is really the right term but there's definitely a 30s/40s poster styleI find quite attractive. You also see it wit a lot of travel/national park/etc. posters from that era.

      • EvanAnderson 6 hours ago

        The National Parks poster style is often called the Work Progress Administration (WPA) style. There was a series of these done for astronomy education in the early 2010's that are wonderful examples of the style: https://www.wired.com/2013/12/nordgren-planetary-posters/

        • ghaff 6 hours ago

          Yeah, definitely WPA style for the US but there's a lot of other poster art that is similar.

          • JKCalhoun 3 hours ago

            Minimal palette for easy screening…

  • voidfunc 8 hours ago

    Anyone know of a similar site for mid-century Airline and Train travel posters?

  • slig 2 hours ago

    What's the best open weights AI upscaler?

  • HelloUsername 3 hours ago

    No 2001, Star Wars, Godfather..

  • sizzzzlerz 6 hours ago

    I really want to see The Shoemaker and the Elves!

    • shermantanktop 5 hours ago

      For a moment the art style on that one made me think of Maurice Sendak.

  • 999900000999 6 hours ago

    Good find, already added Shaft in Africa to my wallpaper.

    How much is a large digital picture frame,I guess just mounting a tv sideways could work.

    • myself248 5 hours ago

      The coolest way to display these is to have them sublimation-printed onto fabric (not silkscreened; silkscreening applies the ink heavily enough to reflect sound, while sublimation printing leaves the fabric still soft and porous), then wrap them onto frames containing sound-absorbing material. Hang them around the place and they improve your acoustics and aesthetics simultaneously.

      https://www.avsforum.com/threads/diy-custom-printed-movie-po...

    • CaptainOfCoit 6 hours ago

      LED walls are cool (and cheap via China) otherwise, and you can start small and then expand if you want since it's relatively modular, just a bunch of square LED panels linked together. You would need a driver though which you may or may not be able to hide behind/somewhere else, makes it kind of bulky compared to just a vertical TV :)

  • riazrizvi 5 hours ago

    “The Soul of - “, who now? My lord, different times for sure.

  • macrocosmos 4 hours ago

    Great website also.

  • tumdum_ 2 hours ago

    How boringly US centric :(

  • jauntywundrkind 7 hours ago

    Different subject matter (space), but if anyone has recommendations, I would love love love the chance to see a poster form childhood.

    It was sometime around international space year ish (1992), and was a poster of a hybrid ship, part Space Shuttle and part large sailing ship, a gallon or what not.

    I kept it for many years as it fell apart but ultimately got rid of it. I love the motif, the idea of endless exploration. Every now and then I do a little web-searching for it, but no luck. Any suggestions welcome!

  • EugeneOZ 3 hours ago

    Many of them seem to be trying to exploit women’s or men’s sexuality.

    • baobabKoodaa 2 hours ago

      Because sexuality equals exploitation?

      • krapp 2 hours ago

        In the commercial context of movies and advertising, yes?

        Particularly where depictions of non-white women and "degenerate" lesbians are concerned, depictions of female sexuality are almost always exploitative.

        • empthought an hour ago

          Precisely how do you define "exploitative?" In the commercial context of movies and advertising, every depiction of anything is "exploitative," in that it is leveraging the depiction to make money for the movie financiers or advertisers.

  • reality_inspctr 5 hours ago

    who's gonna train a model on these?

  • troupo 5 hours ago

    I honestly feel like switching to photography imperceptibly destroyed the art of the poster compared to elaborate detailed posters (theater, circus, ads) of the 19th century. And this continues to this day.

  • xaxaxa123 6 hours ago

    Very cool