A 1941 poster of *Sullivan’s Travels,* with art direction by Maurice “Mischa” Kallis and illustrated by Frederick “Fritz” Siebel.

*42nd Street,* with art direction by Hubbard G. Robinson and Joseph Tisman, 1933.

*2001: A Space Odyssey,* by Mike Kaplan, 1968.

*Breakfast at Tiffany’s,* by Lutz Peltzer, 1961.

*Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,* by Reynold Brown, 1958.

*Nocny Kowboj,* designed by Waldemar Świerzy for the Polish release of *Midnight Cowboy,* 1973.

*Top, Jour de Fête,* by Jean Jacquelin, 1949; *above, The Man in the White Suit,* by Alfred Reginald Thomson, 1951.

*Gilda,* with art direction by Jack Kerness using a colorized photograph by Robert Coburn, 1946.

*King Kong,* with art direction by David L. Strumpf and illustrated by S. Barrett McCormick and Bob Sisk, 1933.

Inserts—thin posters used to complement primary campaigns—for *New York* and *Metropolis,* 1927.

*I Was a Teenage Werewolf,* by Albert Kallis, 1957.

*Top, Thunderball,* by Robert McGinnis and Frank McCarthy, 1965; *above, A Hard Day’s Night,* photographed and designed by Robert Freeman, 1964.

*Casablanca,* designed by Pierre Pigeot for the film’s first postwar French release, 1947.

*Kiss of Death,* by Twentieth Century Fox, 1947.

*Anatomy of a Murder,* by Saul Bass, 1959.

Poster Child

The most comprehensive overview of film posters to date is published in a new coffee-table book from Tony Nourmand, the world’s foremost expert on the art form

“Cinematographic posters are like popular songs,” the filmmaker Federico Fellini said. “They take you back not only to the film but to their seasons, the atmosphere, and the taste of an era.”

No one understands this concept better than Tony Nourmand. Growing up in Tehran in the 1960s, he went to the cinema once a week with his dad or uncle. While the credits rolled, and the adults went to another room to sip tea, Nourmand would hang back and flick through the movie-poster pile. He developed a ritual: every week he carried one home and stuck it on the wall, replacing the one from the week before.