The 15 Best Mondo Movie Posters of All Time
Zack Sharf
For cinephiles across the world, Mondo is the mecca of movie posters. The company, which owns a gallery in Austin, Texas, creates limited edition one sheets for classic and contemporary films, representing the most creative and visually striking art the medium has to offer. The gallery is a particular favorite here at Indiewire (check out some exclusives we’ve premiered here and here), and to celebrate Mondo, we’ve rounded up 15 of their best posters of all time. Ranging from some of this year’s most acclaimed movies (“Ex Machina”) to cult favorites (“Mulholland Drive”) and classics (“Vertigo”), the 15 posters below are a testament to Mondo’s ingenuity.
Visit the Mondo website for their entire collection, which also includes art for television shows, comics, vinyl movie soundtracks, VHS re-issues, toys and apparel.
“The Invisible Man,” Elvisdead
This black-and-white poster for James Whale’s Pre-Code classic is an evocative two-hander; the ghostly bandages foreshadow the horrors the mad scientist is capable of, while the hands unraveling him tease the danger he faces from the police and competing employers.
“Goodnight Mommy,” Jay Shaw
Just like the film itself, Jay Shaw’s striking poster takes the film’s most horrifying image — the mother with the bandaged face — and subverts it with a bloody eye tear. The image is the perfect tease for a horror film born out of extreme sadness.
“Mulholland Drive,” Kevin Tong
The surreal, dreamy and doubling atmosphere of David Lynch’s neo-noir masterpiece is front and center in this gorgeous one sheet. Naomi Watts’ unraveling head reveals an inner and entangled Laura Elena Harring, an effective visual metaphor for their twisty relationship.
“The Thing,” Sam Wolfe Connelly and Jay Shaw
The poster for John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi horror film is less about the extraterrestrial parasite and more about evoking the film’s spine-chilling Antarctic setting. The dead body and trail of blood are certainly creepy, but it’s the frigid blues, greys and whites that expertly sell the film’s atmosphere.
“Mad Max: Fury Road,” Boneface
The grindhouse edge Boneface brings to this one sheet mimics the spirit of the sequel’s grisly atmosphere. Max may be at the center, but the poster is jampacked with chains, War Boys and Immorten Joe; it’s a cluster of violent imagery that is as relentless as George Miller’s film.
“Ex Machina,” Jock
Alex Garland’s morality study uses doors and glass windows to trap the robot Ava in the frame of her basement prison, which is more or less the basis for this beautiful poster. Throw in Ava’s human-like reflection on the ground, and the one sheet manifests much of the film’s grand man vs. machine themes. 
“Badlands,” Tomer Hanuka
Terrence Malik’s 1973 crime film inspires a poster as cool and dangerous as the young murderers at the center of its story. 
“The Babadook,” Gary Pullin
This poster for Jennifer Kent’s new genre classic is suitably sinister. The knife-wielding hand suggests a throwback slasher, but the shadowy Babadook has other plans in store. Consider us terrified. 
“The Iron Giant,” DKNG
DKNG’s poster captures the wonder and imagination that defines much of Brad Bird’s classic. It’s not just the size and metallic sheen of the giant robot, but the starry iconography (that moon!) and the hues of golden orange that leave us in awe.
“Mood Indigo,” Landland
Michel Gondry’s visual sense and how it relates to his characters is the crux of this dazzling poster, with a bombardment of color and flowery imagery forcing the lovers apart. 
“Upstream Color,” Kevin Tong
Shane Carruth’s disorienting mind-bender provides no shortage of narrative challenges for the viewer, and its dreamy Mondo poster doesn’t offer much in clues. What it lacks in answers it makes up for in its moody juxtapositions of colors and surfaces; it’s as intriguing and intoxicating as the film.
“Rear Window,” Laurent Durieux
The most terrifying moment in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” is when L.B. Jeffries is looking through his binoculars and sees the man he has suspected to be a killer staring right back at him. Laurent Durieux inventively combines the director’s cut into one wicked image, enhanced by the red bicolor tips that double as the murderer’s evil eyes.
“Vertigo,” Gary Pullin
This “Vertigo” one sheet looks down the staircase of the film’s climactic Church tower scene. We’re not sure what’s more more startling, the spiraling eye at the center or the tragic imagery the stairs evoke for Scottie and Madeline’s ultimate fate.
“The Master,” Laurent Durieux
Who is the master? That’s the question at the center of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 masterpiece, so it’s accordingly the theme of this poster as well. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd is a towering cult leader with hypnotizing charm (look at those orange spirals), though his control is always in question. Watch out for that hand.
“Bullhead,” Jay Shaw
Michaël R. Roskam’s Oscar-nominated Belgian drama is based on the real murder of a government livestock inspector in 1989 Belgium, and this stark black-and-white poster creates a human devil to tease the movie’s dark subject matter and consequences. 
