The exhibition "The Big Screen - Film Posters of All Time" presents 300 original film posters from the 1900s to the 2020s from the graphic design collection of the Berlin Art Library.
Image gallery
Gerda Dassing, Solo Sunny, 1979
Regine Schulz, Star Trek, 1985
Posters have been central media in the communication of film ever since cinema existed: They bring cinema to the streets and arouse emotions on a grand scale.
A Graphic Snapshot
A cinema film needs a poster - even in digital times it is the most important medium of visual communication. A good film poster is both advertising and art:
It condenses the plot of the film into a single concise image, captures atmosphere and introduces protagonists. Without revealing too much, it arouses curiosity. In short: film is translated into graphics here, along with all the emotions of "big cinema".
Film posters make you marvel, smile or frown, they stir up tension, memory, excitement or admiration.
...of all times
Shortly after the invention of the cinematograph, the first film posters were used in urban spaces around 1900. The exhibition traces a history of the film poster from 1905 to the present day: from narrative and expressionist lithographs in silent cinema to the world-famous modern graphics for New Film Art and Atlas in the 1960s to current design between paper and pixel.
Besides German posters, France, the USA, Poland and other countries are represented. The spectrum spans twelve decades - in the truest sense of the word: film posters of all times!
Professionals and celebrities
What makes a good film poster is very much in the eye of the beholder, has to do with taste, and with personal experience. That's why the exhibition is curated collaboratively: 26 people from the film and cinema industry helped select the exhibits from the approximately 5,000 film posters in the Graphic Design Collection.
Together with the Berlinale management, nominated guests from the fields of acting, directing, cinema business, film studies, art and graphic design were each invited to choose a favourite poster.
- A special exhibition by the Kunstbibliothek - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Berlin International Film Festival and the Deutsche Kinemathek
Additional information
Opening hours:
Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun 10am-6pm, Thu 10am-8pm
Accessibility
- wheelchair accessible
