The Best and Worst Movie Posters 2013

Every movie has at least one poster, and every poster has just one rectangular image to entice you to buy a ticket. (We aren't counting the motion posters that are getting more and more popular on screens in theaters and online, of course.) With that in mind, here are our choices for the 10 best and 10 worst movie posters of the year.

BEST: "Gravity" - The extreme close-up of Sandra Bullock's panicked face with the curvature of the Earth reflected in the glass of her space helmet tells you everything you need to know without actually giving away anything either.

WORST: "Tyler Perry Presents Peeples" - Another tight close-up, this time of Craig Robinson, but this one is more off-putting than intriguing. Robinson's cry-face is supposed to be funny, but it ends up being just plain disturbing.

BEST: "This Is the End" - Here's Robinson again, making another pained expression. But the dog-pile he's in with Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, and pals is both funny and an accurate representation of the manic, rude tone of their apocalyptic comedy.

WORST: "The Big Wedding" - This one is just a mess. There's Robert De Niro and Susan Sarandon doing ridiculously oversized laughs. People obviously cut out of different images and Photoshopped together. And the two leads (Amanda Seyfried and Ben Barnes) who appear as uncomfortable sitting there as the rest of us do looking at them.

BEST: "Escape From Tomorrow" - The film is a low-budget psycho-thriller with no recognizable stars that was filmed discretely (and without permission) in Disney theme parks. The simple but fairly ingenious poster conveys the creepy tone of the movie and hints at the Disney iconography while still tiptoeing around any copyright infringement.

WORST: "August: Osage County" - You've got a huge cast of some of the most acclaimed and recognizable actors on the planet. So what do you put on the poster? A flip-top house. True, it's supposed to be a teaser poster, but what exactly is this supposed to be teasing. Thankfully, the studio released a final poster later that gave a better sense of the movie (in that it showed Julia Roberts physically attacking Meryl Streep).

BEST: "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" - The second "Hunger Games" film had a series of great visual marketing materials, from the stylish "Capitol Portraits" series to the propaganda-like "Victory Tour." But the most striking was this IMAX poster which puts Jennifer Lawrence in the middle of a classical statue.

WORST: "Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas" - Truly, nothing expresses the spirit of the holiday season like the reckless endangerment of a young child.

BEST: "42" - Sometimes, the best way to draw the viewer's eye is to alter the perspective. By tilting the photo of Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson on its side, the poster creates a kinetic image that gives a fresh look at a legendary ballplayer.

WORST: "Jobs" - Apple founder Steve Jobs was known for being not just a technical innovator but an advocate for clean, impeccable design. So what would he say about the poster for his biopic, where the photo of Ashton Kutcher (who, granted, does look the part) is rendered in garish rainbow colors?

BEST: "Iron Man 3" - For Robert Downey Jr.'s fourth turn as the metallic Marvel super hero (counting "The Avengers"), the studio had to promise something fans hadn't seen before. This poster of Tony Stark plummeting to Earth with his armored suit in tatters is an eye-popping glimpse at a literal fallen hero.

WORST: "The Heat" - This poster has already gotten flack for the Photoshop job that rendered star Melissa McCarthy nearly unrecognizable. But it's also just awkward and not particularly appealing.

BEST: "Man of Steel" - Subverting expectations can make a poster great. This first full look at Henry Cavill as Superman handcuffed in military custody certainly goes against what you know about the super hero. It's an intriguing moment in time that definitely piques one's curiosity.

WORST: "Escape Plan" - Nothing can get you hyped-up for an action movie like a photo of two sexagenarians sitting down. The set-up for the movie is that Stallone and Schwarzenegger are imprisoned, but this static poster doesn't promise many thrills.

BEST: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" - Ben Stiller's adaptation of the James Thurber story had a series of fantastical posters -- Walter on a mountain, on the side of skyscraper, and even on the moon -- but this one of him standing on a shark really stood out.

WORST: "Delivery Man" - Vince Vaughn shrugs. So do we.

BEST: "Insidious: Chapter 2" - Sometimes, it's what you don't see. This simple monochromatic image of a baby in a walker approaching the edge of darkness is unsettling in its simplicity. Literally anything could be out there.

WORST: "Black Nativity" - On the opposite end of the spectrum, this poster is crammed with faces and details, none of which seem to fit together cohesively. It's one big mess.

BEST: "Machete Kills" - When your film features Sofia Vergara in a machine-gun bra, there's really no other way to sell it than to show Sofia Vergara in a machine-gun bra.

WORST: "Bullet to the Head" - This is mostly a collection of bad poster clichés: big heads, a blue-and-orange color scheme, explosions, and guns. But this particular poster holds the distinction of having one of the worst Photoshop jobs in the history of the technology. Look at how terribly lead actress Sarah Shahi's head has been pasted onto her body. The lighting is completely off, and her cranium is about three times bigger than it should be. The poster would be bad anyway, but that cut-and-paste job is flat-out embarrassing.