Give us a Best Movie Poster Oscars category, you cowards

There are plenty of absent Academy Award categories that filmmakers and fans have been begging for over the years, including stunt coordination, main title design and casting. That last one is finally happening next year, proving that the Academy does sometimes listen. And for our money, the next new category should Best Poster Design.

For a while back in the 2010s it looked like poster design innovation might be stalling. Thanks to Marvel, the proliferation of the 'floating head' design seemed all-encompassing. But things have changed in recent years, with creativity making a comeback. Many of the films nominated for Oscars in 2025 featured truly stunning posters, with some even giving the best movie posters ever a run for their money.

While the film itself proved divisive, the posters for Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness were truly stunning. Featuring dreamscape visuals, a classily curated colour palette and a recurring aesthetic of bizarre repeating or oversized heads, these were some of the most unforgettable posters we saw over the last twelve months.

Less mysterious but no less striking was the poster for Alien Romulus. The design clearly plays on the nostalgia of the Alien series, reviving one of its most iconic enemies, yet the design feels subdued and stylish in its quietly disturbing imagery. The red and black colour palette adds an additional sense of horror and tension, giving the poster a chilling graphic feel.

And now for something altogether more retro. Tony Stella's handpainted collage for La Chimera is taking us back to Drew Struzan's famous posters for the '70s and '80s. Sure, it features a bunch of floating heads – but when they're painted this beatifully, we don't have a bad word to say about them.

The striking poster for Challengers, last year's hugely popular Zendaya-fronted tennis flick, has an extravagantly maximalist 80s vibe. Viewers were quick to point out the resemblance to several posters from that era, such as Risky Business.

While it might be too much to hope for the biggest filmmaking award ceremony to start honouring graphic design, it would certainly be nice to see some of the stunning artistry that accompanies the films themselves given a nod. In the meantime, I guess it falls to us – take a look at our roundup of the best and worst movie posters of 2024.