Legendary Movie Poster Artist

If you grew up in the 1970s or ’80s, you remember a time when movie posters were handcrafted masterpieces, not the product of Photoshop or AI.

These pieces of key art were painted by illustrators whose visions shaped how we imagined films long before we saw them.

Artists like Bob Peak (Apocalypse Now), Roger Kastel (Jaws), David Grove (Something Wicked This Way Comes) — and above all Drew Struzan — turned advertising into a form of storytelling.

Struzan became the preferred poster artist for the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro, producing the unforgettable imagery for franchises such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and even Police Academy.

Born in Oregon and trained at ArtCenter, he signed many works with a lowercase "drew" and had a talent for making mediocre films look alluring and great films feel timeless.

As a longtime poster collector myself, I can attest to the pull of that work — I once paid three months’ salary for an original, while many originals today fetch six-figure prices.

He formally retired on Sept. 3, 2008, and following his recent passing at 78, it feels right to celebrate the legacy he left behind.

To honor that legacy, here is a curated look at ten of Struzan’s finest paintings, presented without typography or finishing flourishes so the artwork can speak for itself.

Drew Struzan's Unreleased Tarzan Masterpiece: A Lost Treasure of Movie Art

Among the countless iconic posters in Drew Struzan's legendary portfolio, his unreleased artwork for the Tarzan film featuring Bo Derek remains a fascinating footnote in cinema history. This stunning colored pencil composition—which later became an oil painting valued at $125,000—captures a tender moment between Miles O'Keeffe's Tarzan and Derek's Jane atop a magnificent elephant.

What makes Struzan's artistic process so remarkable is the meticulous exploration behind each final image. For every poster that reaches theaters, dozens of concepts and variations are developed, each testing different character arrangements and visual hierarchies.

The Tarzan piece brilliantly showcases Struzan's passion for wildlife art, particularly his affinity for jungle animals. Though the scene depicted never appears in the actual film, it perfectly encapsulates the characters' chemistry in a way that transcends literal adaptation.

Sadly, this masterwork never became the official poster due to behind-the-scenes politics. Bo Derek specifically requested artist Olivia de Berardinis, and with Derek's husband John directing, her preference prevailed. The resulting official poster featured only Jane—oddly omitting Tarzan entirely—with a likeness that poorly captured Derek's actual appearance.

For collectors and film art enthusiasts, Struzan's rejected Tarzan poster represents one of cinema's great "what might have been" moments, standing as testament to the artist's unparalleled ability to capture the essence of a film in a single, breathtaking image.

Drew Struzan's artistic legacy extends far beyond the monetary value of his paintings, though their association with blockbuster franchises certainly contributes to their premium prices. With Steven Spielberg and George Lucas willingly investing substantial sums for original Star Wars and Indiana Jones artwork, Struzan's pieces have become highly coveted collectibles.

Interestingly, some of Struzan's most remarkable creations were commissioned for films that didn't achieve commercial success. These posters often elevate our perception of the movies themselves through their evocative imagery.

"Hook" presents a fascinating case study. The poster—depicting Robin Williams as the adult Peter Pan returning to Neverland—wasn't released until a week after the film's premiere, so it couldn't be held responsible for the movie's underwhelming box office performance. Nevertheless, the artwork brilliantly captured Spielberg's whimsical vision.

The worn map design element in "Hook" bears similarities to Struzan's work for "Cutthroat Island," another commercial disappointment blessed with exceptional promotional art. Both Williams and Dustin Hoffman are portrayed with remarkable emotional depth in the "Hook" poster.

An amusing anecdote reveals Struzan's dedication to authenticity. When visiting Hoffman's residence to discuss the poster, he found the acclaimed method actor in casual attire, enjoying ice cream directly from the container. Unsatisfied with Struzan's initial portrayal of Captain Hook, Hoffman requested revisions, demonstrating the collaborative nature behind these iconic images.

Harrison Ford famously claimed Struzan depicted him best—capturing not mere appearance, but the spirit within.

Struzan’s genius lay in channeling the essence of actors and their iconic roles.

His brush defined Indiana Jones across decades, gracing posters, novels, games, and even theme parks.

While not the lead artist for "Raiders" or "Temple," he became the franchise’s definitive voice by "The Last Crusade."

That poster remains unmatched: Indy’s devil-may-care grin dominates the foreground,

while Sean Connery’s stern disapproval lingers behind him.

Ancient columns frame the scene—a clever trick of perspective echoing "Raiders,"

trapping Indy’s coat while his hat floats free.

And surging from the center, an explosive action sequence bursts from the poster.

Artists often put themselves into their work, but Struzan did it quite literally — when he needed a pose he had his wife photograph him "in character" and rushed the film to a developer for reference.

Because he usually only had headshots of the actors to work from, those personal snapshots became essential in the pre-digital workflow.

You’ll notice his hands appear in many posters; for Robert Zemeckis’s time-travel classic he even used his whole body — sneakers and all — as the model.

That hands-on method helped him distill a movie’s mood into a single, unforgettable image: Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly checking his watch with one foot in the DeLorean, a picture that lingers longer than the actual parking-lot scene.

Although most of his alternate comps leaned on giant clocks, the less literal, feeling-first approach won out.

For the follow-ups he kept Fox prominent and placed the other characters in line behind him.

Struzan's artistic signature is characterized by a distinctive radiance that emanates from within his illustrations. Before Thomas Kinkade commercialized the technique of interior illumination in his cottage scenes, Struzan had mastered the art of using airbrush techniques to create an ethereal glow in his subjects' features, bringing a magical luminosity to their eyes and skin.

This unique ability attracted filmmaker Frank Darabont, who commissioned Struzan for the 10th anniversary edition of "The Shawshank Redemption," where he reimagined the iconic rain scene with Tim Robbins, infusing it with an almost supernatural iridescence.

Perhaps the most striking demonstration of this technique appears on the special edition DVD cover of Darabont's other Stephen King adaptation. Despite the overall darkness of the composition, Tom Hanks seems to emit light, while Ving Rhames' hands cup what appears to be pure radiance, perfectly capturing the film's transcendent spiritual themes.

Guillermo del Toro, another director who deeply appreciates Struzan's artistry, sought this same luminous quality for "Pan's Labyrinth," resulting in a brilliant piece that unfortunately wasn't selected for the final poster design.

Master of Promotional Art

Struzan had an uncanny ability to make static figures feel animated — a talent that mattered most when he tackled Jim Henson’s Muppets.

On film they were, quite literally, felt puppets whose photographic stills often betrayed their mechanical nature, but Struzan’s artwork erased that artifice.

Take The Muppet Movie poster: a crowded jalopy turns into a stage for distinct personalities, each character so vivid you can almost hear their dialogue.

The image of Miss Piggy cradling Kermit upends expectations and reinforces the notion that these were living, mischievous performers, not mere toys.

It’s rare for a single poster to provoke genuine laughter, yet Struzan managed that — just as he did later with the Police Academy series.

Henson appreciated how he rendered the gang and commissioned Struzan for the studio’s theatrical posters; the Great Muppet Caper image of the cast bursting through paper remains a beloved example.

Struzan’s Goonies mock-ups are a perfect case study for how poster art was done in the 1980s.

The final image—an adventure cast hanging from a stalactite—was only one of several layouts he explored.

He experimented with multiple arrangements before the studio settled on the order that places Josh Brolin at the top and leaves poor Martha Coolidge nearly lost in the background.

That iterative approach highlights the essential difference between commissioned commercial artists and gallery painters: Struzan produced work to brief, revising it to fit what marketing wanted.

Technically he was a trained painter, often working on gessoed boards so his highlights and finishing strokes read with vivid, almost three-dimensional depth.

But those painterly choices were tempered by studio notes, and many of his finished compositions are the result of compromise.

Rather than seeing that as a weakness, it can be read as a strength—immense craft plus the patience to rework a design dozens of times.

What’s striking about the Goonies process is how many of the alternative concepts would have succeeded; the multiple paths all pointed to a convincing final image.

Drew Struzan's iconic artwork for the inaugural "Harry Potter" film stands as a testament to visual storytelling that subsequent franchise entries never quite recaptured. While John Williams' enchanting score provided the auditory soul of Rowling's magical universe, Struzan's masterful illustration offered its visual heartbeat.

The poster faced an extraordinary challenge: bridging the gap between millions of readers' imaginations and the real-world casting decisions. Struzan's composition brilliantly introduced audiences to Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and the entire ensemble who would—remarkably—continue their roles throughout the decade-long cinematic journey (with Dumbledore's portrayer being the notable exception following Richard Harris' passing).

As the series progressed toward increasingly darker themes and heavier reliance on digital effects, the marketing materials similarly evolved away from Struzan's painterly warmth. The shift to photographic and digitally-manipulated posters for later installments represented not just a stylistic change but a fundamental departure from the handcrafted charm that had initially welcomed viewers to Hogwarts.

This Potter poster remains a high point in Struzan's celebrated portfolio, demonstrating his unique ability to distill a story's essence into a single, captivating image—a talent that subsequent Harry Potter promotional materials, despite their technical proficiency, could never quite conjure.

Struzan faced a tough brief on The Thing: create a poster when the film’s alien form was still a mystery, so he rendered a luminous spacesuit that many viewers liken to Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still.

That image has become closely associated with his name, though some critics argue his later artwork for a John Carpenter picture surpasses it artistically.

Struzan himself would concede the layout pulls together an almost cluttered assortment of film references, yet that very overload mirrors the movie’s unsettling, layered feel.

His poster for Big Trouble in Little China captures the movie’s chaos perfectly, blending comedy, romantic beats, kung fu energy, a monster truck and supernatural weirdness into one composition.

A playful touch — the frayed CB microphone cord in Kurt Russell’s grip — signals the film’s wink-at-itself tone.

And because he often posed for his subjects, the famous stance associated with Russell’s character is in fact modeled on Struzan himself.

Tom Jung created the first Star Wars poster; Greg and Tim Hildebrandt offered an early, Vallejo-inspired image of Luke with his lightsaber and Leia at his feet.

Drew Struzan was not the originator of the franchise’s artwork, but he later became the artist most closely linked with Star Wars imagery.

By 1997 George Lucas asked Struzan to produce a fresh suite of posters for the original trilogy’s re-release.

Struzan had already produced one of the most sought-after Star Wars pieces: a red-and-black teaser for the then-titled Revenge of the Jedi, showing Darth Vader in silhouette.

For the re-release he painted a triptych—three panels conceived to hang together as one sweeping horizontal composition.

These pieces are noticeably moodier than much of his earlier, 1980s work, marking a stylistic shift away from that period’s tone.

The new art helped establish the visual language later echoed by the prequel era; his Phantom Menace poster, for example, emphasized Darth Maul’s striking facial design while downplaying Jar Jar Binks.

Rather than functioning purely as theatrical bait, Struzan’s re-release set was meant to provide devoted fans with iconic images that celebrate and encapsulate their affection for the original films.

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