The 25 Best Movie Posters of 2016

The 25 Best Movie Posters of 2016

As with every year, we like to make one thing crystal clear right off the top: This is not a “Posters for the Most Cherished Movies of the Year” piece or a “Posters for the Biggest Hits of the Year” article. These are the one-sheets we have deigned to be The 25 Best Movie Posters of 2016 regardless of the movie they were promoting.

RELATED: The 25 Best Movie Posters of 2015

We have combed through hundreds upon hundreds of posters, from puny indie features to $200 million dollar behemoths. While many of 2016’s most lucrative and Rotten Tomatoes-winning flicks made the cut, there are quite a few for flicks that passed well below the radar of most moviegoers (including us). All of them, however, are outstanding pieces of art in their own right.

Check out the blockbusters, the indies and the hand-drawn alternates we’ve chosen in the gallery below!

What do you think were the best movie posters of 2016? Let us know in the comments below.

Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker's one-time Oscar hopeful petered out amidst controversy, but nevertheless featured one of the most powerful posters in a politically divisive year.

Darling

This Glass Eye Pix release of Mickey Keating's black & white thriller barely made a blip at the box office, but damn if that's not a memorably hypnotic image.

Deadpool

With one of the most brilliant and subversive PR campaigns in recent memory, it was hard to choose which Deadpool one-sheet was the best, but this teaser poster by Ten30 Studios really did the trick in terms of conveying what kind of movie was in store for the unsuspecting public.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

This third entry in the Divergent Series had the ugly distinction of killing the franchise only one movie out from completion. Still, this stark B&W poster managed to convey the social stratification at the saga's core with eerie effectiveness.

Doctor Strange

Marvel didn't shy way from Doctor Strange's counterculture roots as a favorite comic book among acid heads, and this blacklight poster designed by Randal Roberts really embraces that history in a big way.

Don't Breathe

One of the reason's Fede Alvarez's taut horror thriller was so successful was because it relied on simplicity. This poster by The Refinery relayed the terror of the story with that same bluntness.

The Founder

A biopic about the founding of McDonald's has all sorts of opportunities from an iconic design standpoint, and this teaser poster by Gravillis Inc. delivers the goods.

Hacksaw Ridge

Anyone who's seen this WWII tale knows that Mel Gibson did not shy away from his signature extreme violence, and this foreign one-sheet captures the overblown absurdity of it in spades. 

Incarnate

We missed this Aaron Eckhart horror flick in theaters, and judging by its less than $5 million take in the US, most of you did as well. Still, this is a very visceral poster even by the standards of the genre.

La La Land

Damien Chazelle's magical ode to Hollywood musicals of yore deserved an equally-inspired poster, and got one by a design firm called, appropriately enough, LA.

Little Sister

The great Akiko Stehrenberger (The One I Love, It Follows) designed this beautiful hand-painted one-sheet for director Zach Clark's goth nun masterpiece, which is one of the little-seen gems of this past year.

The Lobster

This gorgeous piece for the year's best black comedy sums up the absurd essence of it with graceful effectiveness. 

The Love Witch

Anna Biller's ode to 1960's thrillers with a pseudo-feminist spin earned a delicious throwback poster painted by Michael Koelsch (designed by Fred Davis). 

Miles Ahead

Don Cheadle's Miles Davis biopic got several half-sheets from Empire Design, with this one showcasing several quotes from famous musicians into the image being  particularly striking. 

Moonlight

InSync Plus perfectly relayed Moonlight's conceit of utilizing three different actors of varying ages to play the main character at different stages of his life. Simple, artful, perfect.

My Scientology Movie

The nature of this documentary's subject is relayed just about perfectly by legendary illustrator Ralph Steadman of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" fame. 

The Neon Demon

Nicolas Winding Refn's campy and violent fashion model horror flick was too pretentious for some, but we think the years will be kind to it. This poster captures the moody, color-soaked world Refn created.

Paterson

A quiet movie filled with humor and humanity, Jim Jarmusch's Paterson got a German poster that illustrated who the real star was: Marvin the Dog.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

The Lonely Island's relentless skewering of modern-day pop stardom (particularly Justin Bieber) cast its "hero" Conor 4 Real as a gilded prince of vapidity. 

Sausage Party

Writer/star Seth Rogen created a smash hit out of this super subversive, super un-PC satire of Pixar-style animated films. This one-sheet by BLT Communications, LLC cleverly manages to be extremely suggestive in a G-rated way, and we love it. 

Star Trek Beyond

BLT Communications, LLC created another dazzling teaser for a rare threequel that actually managed to surpass its two predecessors... even if the box office didn't relay that.

Suicide Squad

One of the worst, most incoherent superhero movies in recent memory somehow wound up with an extremely clever ad campaign. This all-marshmallow cereal bowl concept by Concept Arts managed to also convey what's wrong with it: All sugar, no nutrition. 

10 Cloverfield Lane

Another winner from BLT Communications, LLC, this one relaying the menace of what's going on in the bunker John Goodman's character has built. 

When the Bough Breaks

While it may not have sparked much conversation, this Lifetime movie-esque thriller made a fair profit at the box office and got a Concept Arts poster that is pure exploitation gold.

The Witch

Black Phillip the goat got a lot of love after The Witch came out and became THE most adored horror film of the year. Gravillis Inc. had a lot to do with that, having made him a centerpiece of their campaign. 

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