How film posters have developed over time

From the film Passport to Pimlico (1949) by Henry Cornelius

From the film Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock

From the film Papillon (1973) by Franklin J. Schaffner

From the film The Titanic (1997) by James Cameron

From the film The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) by Paul Greengrass

This shows how film posters have developed over time. It shows that with the earliest film posters, like Passport to Pimlico, seem quite hand drawn and do not have that much detail on them, so some main conventions for film posters were not written yet. However, as you look at film posters from the 60's and 70's, like Psycho, there tends to be plain images but again still not much information because this was when going to the cinema started to become popular. Finally, the relatively modern film posters have been well thought about and seem more eye catching because they use iconic images and many of the main conventions, for example billing block, picture of the star and background images. However, all of these film posters have been successful because they were full of semiotics and very eye catching for their time.