Thriller film posters typically use dark colors like black, grey, red, white, blue, yellow and orange. The poster usually features the main character(s) prominently and may include additional pictures to provide context about the setting, characters, or scenes from the film. Fonts are clear and easy to read with the title in bold capital letters to attract attention. Lighting is usually low-key to create a mysterious atmosphere, and posters include the director, producers, main actors, taglines, reviews, and release date to entice audiences.

1. Thriller Poster Conventions

3. Colour
• Thriller film posters typically use the colours:
black, grey, red, white, blue, yellow and
orange.

4. Picture
• The poster usually includes the main character,
sometimes two that are the main focus on the
poster and take up most of the space.
• Sometimes there is a few more pictures that give
away the setting, more characters and possibly a
scene from the film.
• Thriller posters sometimes has the use of a
glowing light.
• There is always some signifiers in the poster to
tell the audience what genre the film is and what
may happen during the film

5. Font/text
• The fonts used are typically clear and easy to
read. The title is usually in capitals letters and
is bold to attract the audiences attention.
• Sometimes the font can be scratchy and rough
looking to give a feel of the film and relate to
the genre.
• The title is normally in white, red or
yellow/orange.

6. Lighting
• The lighting is typically low key lighting to
create that mysterious and tense atmosphere.
• The lighting makes the characters seem
mysterious and sometimes creates shadows
which hides the identity and makes the
audience want to find out who it is.

7. Director, producer and actors
• The director and producer of the film is
normally shown, especially if they are well
known as some people follow
directors/producers. The main character(s) are
normally shown as well as this may attract
people to see the film if they are well known.
• The actors names are normally seen at the top
or bottom of posters.

8. Taglines and reviews
• Thriller posters have a tagline and at least one
review on them.
• Reviews help sell the film and if well known
companies are recommending it then the
target audience will want to see it as well.
• The tagline gives a clue to what the film is
about but normally has a mysterious feel to it
to make the audience want to see the film.

9. Date
• The date is put on posters so the audience
know when the film is coming out. Sometimes
the posters will have ‘coming soon’, the exact
date or month.