The Best Star Wars Movie Posters of All Time

No one artist is responsible for this image, but its striking simplicity makes it the best poster released for the sequel trilogy.

The striking colors of Struzan’s image, the idea of Vader looming over Luke, as well as the tease of a final showdown, makes for an amazing poster. The fact it has the old, original title, makes it both cooler and also, well, inaccurate. Hence the lower ranking.

As you’ll see, The Empire Strikes Back has a lot of amazing posters. We love this one because of how it evokes the film’s title with the striking image of Vader, and also ties in so many other scenes of the movie beautifully and effortlessly.

Struzan’s posters for the special editions of not just Star Wars, but also The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, burrowed in the consciousness of fans maybe too young to remember the initial releases, but who were very excited for these re-releases. They’re simple but elegant, and we think this is the best of the three.

As a huge Millennium Falcon fan, maybe I’m a little biased with this one, but the Falcon is a huge part of Empire and the way it’s used to divide the light and the dark sides while still telling its own story is a masterful piece of composition.

When this poster was first created, it was just the single main section. Fully painted, hugely influenced by pulp posters of the past. Basically perfect. But when the artists realized the ratio was off, they were forced to add the semi-awkward border with Obi-Wan. It makes for a great story but, also, a poster that’s close to perfect, but a little odd.

For some, this was the first poster they ever saw for Star Wars. And the way it evokes not just a sci-fi adventure, but also a comic book and Japanimation, all works together to almost expertly capture all the tones and genres Star Wars pays tribute too.

New heroes. New villains. All centered around this young boy. After over 15 years away, Star Wars returned in 1999, and Struzan’s theatrical one-sheet held all the promise many people didn’t think the eventual movie had. Still, the poster is a straight-up masterpiece in every way, the best of the full prequel trilogy Struzan completed. It’s here in the middle simply because it’s a prequel.

For some, this might be the key image they see in their mind when they think of “Star Wars”—it’s that recognizable and awesome. However, when you break it down, it’s kind of just the characters floating in space. Amazing composition, likeness, everything, but Jung’s work has an impossibly high bar and this is slightly lower than a few others.

There’s something to be said for simplicity. When audiences last saw Luke Skywalker, he’d lost his lightsaber dueling with Darth Vader. Then they saw this poster. It’s got the title, Return of the Jedi, and Luke (we assumed) holding a new saber. It told the whole story with three basic elements. Absolutely incredible.

What makes this poster so incredible besides, well, all of it, is the construction. The bottom? Chaos. Tons of characters and images. In the middle? A dose of normalcy, a kiss, your main characters, etc. At the top, just one thing: Darth Vader. The Empire was about to strike back at our heroes and this pyramid-shaped image gave us that and more.

After two hugely successful movies, this one-sheet told fans everything and nothing about the conclusion. Luke has a new look. Darth Vader looms large. But what is Princess Leia wearing? Who is Han Solo shooting at? Is that a giant slug? Though there aren’t a lot of characters on the poster, each plays a role in piecing together what has become one of the most iconic Star Wars images ever.

As excellent as Drew Struzan’s theatrical one-sheet for The Phantom Menace was, the teaser poster was even better. Talk about simple. Just a boy in the desert with his shadow. A shadow of the future we all knew was coming. After years of waiting, fans saw this and lost their minds. They still do, even though we now know how it all played out.

This incredible image, which was also reimagined by the Hildebrandt brothers at George Lucas’s request, is Star Wars. Plain and simple. It has the swashbuckling adventure vibe of the serials the film was inspired by, it blends in the sci-fi elements, and has the kind of size and scope that promises something you’ve never seen before. To me, this is the most “Star Wars” image ever. But only the second-best “poster.”

Take everything I’ve said about every poster before this, round them all up, shove them together, and you’ve got the Star Wars poster of Star Wars posters. What truly makes this one stand out is how it plays up the romance. It gives the franchise a whole other level of emotion none of the other posters have. They all have excitement. Scope. Epic battles. But here you have that plus the love that makes The Empire Strikes Back stand out from the rest of the franchise.

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