page_title: Film poster
section_title: Collecting
hierarchical_section_title: Film poster / Collecting
caption_attribution_description: English: "Style F" theatrical release poster for the 1931 film Dracula.
context_page_description: A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film primarily to persuade paying customers into a theater to see it. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. They normally contain an image with text. Today's posters often feature printed likenesses of the main actors. Prior to the 1980s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on film posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. It may also include a tagline, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, and other pertinent details to inform prospective viewers about the film.
  Film posters are often displayed inside and on the outside of movie theaters, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The same images appear in the film exhibitor's pressbook and may also be used on websites, DVD packaging, flyers, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and all other press related to the promotion of the film.
  Film posters have been used since the earliest public exhibitions of film.
context_section_description: After the National Screen Service ceased most of its printing and distribution operations in 1985, some of the posters which they had stored in warehouses around the United States ended up in the hands of private collectors and dealers. Today there is a thriving collectibles market in film posters, and some have become very valuable. The first auction by a major auction house solely of film posters occurred on December 11, 1990, when proceeds of a sale of 271 vintage posters run by Bruce Hershenson at Christie's totaled US$935,000. The record price for a single poster was set on November 15, 2005 when $690,000 was paid for a poster of Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis from the Reel Poster Gallery in London. Other early horror and science fiction posters are known to bring extremely high prices as well, with an example from The Mummy realizing $452,000 in a 1997 Sotheby's auction, and posters from both Bride of Frankenstein and The Black Cat selling for $334,600 in Heritage auctions, in 2007 and 2009, respectively.
  Occasionally, rare film posters have been found being used as insulation in attics and walls. In 2011, 33 film posters, including a Dracula Style F one-sheet (shown right), from 1930-1931 were discovered in an attic in Berwick, Pennsylvania and auctioned for $502,000 in March 2012 by Heritage Auctions.
  Over the years, old Bollywood posters, mostly from Bombay, India, especially with hand-painted art, have become collectors' items. Ghanaian hand-painted movie posters from the tradition's Golden Age in the 1980s and 1990s have sold for tens of thousands of dollars and been exhibited in galleries and museums across the world.
  As a result of market demand for paper posters, some of the more popular older film posters have been reproduced either under license or illegally.  Although the artwork on paper reproductions is the same as originals, reproductions can often be distinguished by size, printing quality, and paper type. Several websites on the Internet offer "authentication" tests to distinguish originals from reproductions.
  Original film posters distributed to theaters and other poster venues (such as bus stops) by the movie studios are never sold directly to the public. However, most modern posters are produced in large quantities and often become available for purchase by collectors indirectly through various secondary markets such as eBay. Accordingly, most modern posters are not as valuable. However some recent posters, such as the Pulp Fiction "Lucky Strike" U.S. one sheet poster (recalled due to a dispute with the cigarette company), are quite rare.
caption: Dracula Style F one sheet
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