Movie posters are one of the best ways for a person celebrating their love of cinema. You don’t go to the movies very often, and most of us can’t afford to props used on screenbut hopefully, we have walls. And put a perfect representation of a movie on your wall a nice way of saying, “I love it, and I want it to be a part of my life every day.”

For decades, the movie poster has been a thing of beauty. A true art form. Artists like it Drew Struzan and John Alvin will paint beautiful scenes and pictures that the studios will turn into pictures that will be sent to theaters around the world. Designers like Saul Bass will conceptualize something strange and unique, which can be synonymous with a film or series. However, in recent years, those practices have, to a large extent, disappeared.

As homogenized, repetitive collages of characters from a single film became more and more prevalent, savvy poster fans looked to alternative markets. Companies like MondoBottleneck Gallery, Gallery 1988, and others give young artists the opportunity to create their own movie posters, and the results are stunning and collectible. It took a while, but eventually, the studios took notice and started hiring some of the artists to work directly with them.

And, in 2025, it finally feels like everything is coming together to put us on a new path. Even a little.

One such example is the artist Matt Ferguson. Ferguson is a UK-based illustrator who, this year alone, created official posters Predator: Badlands, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the anniversary of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, The Running Man, and Black Phone 2.

“I think there’s more of a desire for singularly illustrated posters,” Ferguson told io9. “Not always for the main charge poster, but definitely in the mix.” Although, to be fair, it is his Predator: Badlands is the ultimate payoff poster. Here it is.

Part of the reason artists like Ferguson don’t do every single poster is that most of the time, the studios want more control. Approvals came not only from filmmakers but an army of executives, too. That’s harder to do when just one person makes a poster from start to finish. “I can’t ‘finish’ the other layouts,” says Ferguson. “I do everything from concept to completion, including graphic design and type.”

Why the change, especially this year? Well, Ferguson has a convincing theory. “For me personally in this age of generative AI, I think it’s just a good thing that (a movie) can say, ‘This poster was made by this person,'” Ferguson said. “There’s a legitimacy and authenticity that you get right away. And I think that’s a big reason why there’s been this kind of sense of very creative and interesting posters recently.”

So what other films met that challenge this year? Ferguson wasn’t the only one working The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Artist Paul Mann made a whole collection of images which was also used for that film. Marvel used artist Akiko Stehrenberger for an amazing alternative to Thunderstorms. In DC, the Superman The campaign is filled with the type of simple, heroic images from days gone by.

Netflix also recruited the artist James Jean, who created the amazing image of 2022 Everything Everywhere Everything at Once, for the unforgettable Frankenstein poster (seen below). Matt Ryan Tobin made an early poster for Tron: AresCanada-based artists Phantom City Creative created an official poster for the Kill Bill: The Full Blooded Actionand that is only the tip of the iceberg. Bugonia, No Other Choice, and Sinners also recently initiated by Los Angeles Times for their transition to a more artistic style.

Every poster can be like that? Of course not. Big studios with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line aren’t always willing to gamble on an artistic vision. But that they exist and are becoming more widespread is encouraging. In addition, small studios and small films are always a place to look for good art, and this year only, posters for Dangerous Animals, Dead Diamond Reflections, Good Child, and HOUSEMATES are just some of the standouts.

The year 2025 feels like a turn has finally been made in the right direction. It won’t be right away, and it won’t be as long as it used to be, but it looks like, maybe, the movie theater poster could be coming back in a big, big way. Here is a gallery of some of the other pictures mentioned above, if they are not linked.

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