The art of the movie poster is a delicate one. Get the right poster, and you bring in the casual moviegoer, catch the eye and even get people wanting to buy it and put it on their walls. Get it wrong, and it can cost you hard cash at the box office.

For, whether you like it or not, the poster is the key deciding factor for many cinemagoers when choosing what to see at their local multiplex. And it got us thinking: what are the things that people put on their posters that serve no logical purpose whatsoever? What are, frankly, the most redundant things your poster can say?

Here are our top 10 choices..

The Little Box Around Someone's Name In The Credits

This is, we're led to believe, a contractual thing that some directors or stars benefit from. Thus, you see that spider-stretched writing at the footer of the movie poster? Every now and then, there's a name that gets a box around it, to give it extra emphasis.

The problem is, of course, that you've got more chance of seeing a Magic Eye picture than you have the credits at the bottom of a poster from a distance. Thus, it's surely a pure ego massage, rather than anything that adds to the poster whatsoever. Did anyone really go and see Batman because Kim Basinger's name had a nice little border around it?

You could, incidentally, also argue that all of those credits in their entirety aren't the most useful use of space either...

Questions That Nobody Gives A Shit About The Answer To

The makers of Corky Romano probably should have had a slightly longer marketing meeting...

Statements That Are Clearly Untrue

Hyperbole is crucial to selling a movie. But there's an appropriate level of bullshit that you can include. Get this wrong, and people simply look at the poster, think that you're lying, and then promptly move on to the next film. Even if the line you've used came from a critic, resist the urge to blow it up to a very big size, and remember to remove any reference to Michael Caine classics at all costs.

This Man's Face On The Poster

Rule also applies to: Eddie Murphy

Festival Entry Stickers

If you've won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme D'Or, then it makes sense, clearly, to put that on the poster. However, what doesn't tend to fool people is putting together a collection of seemingly-important award motifs that simply beg closer inspection.

In the case of this example, Cape Of Good Hope, it actually has some winners to go with its collection of festival goodness. But really: what does official selection at a festival mean? Is it just us that takes this to mean that the film was, well, shown? That's hardly a selling point is it, nor is it an indicator as to whether anyone liked it or not?

In the case of this example, they've even cited the fact that it had a world premiere, parading it in the style of some posh award that it clearly isn't.

The rule of festival stickers should be this: if people haven't heard of the festival, and/or you haven't won a prize, then it's not a good idea to include it.

What next? A ‘We're Stocked At Blockbuster' logo?

People With The Top Of Their Heads Cut Off Who Have Smoke Billowing From Their Brain

A common sense rule that the poster for The Age Of Stupid cruelly overlooked.

Too Many Critics' Quotes

It's always nice to get good reviews, and should your feature be acclaimed, then why not put a few quotes on the poster to add an extra selling message?

However, all good things come in moderation, and sometimes, the temptation to splatter the poster with movie quotes to the point of forgetting to even offer a hint as to what the film is about is too high.

Be particularly wary of very short critic quotes that look like they could have been taken out of context. A pity, in this example, as Boiler Room is a fine movie.

For future reference too, saying 'Ben Affleck Has Never Been Better' is not what most of us would describe as a particularly strong selling point.

Badly Photoshopped Pictures Of Colin Firth

Photoshop: a computer program that's become a life saver for many graphic designers and photographers. Faking stars on photos is no new game, either. It was well reported that it wasn't Julia Roberts' body on that Pretty Woman poster, for instance.

That said, the trick to this conceit is to make it invisible to the naked eye. What you absolutely don't want to do is add in a picture of a star who wasn't available for the photo shoot, who clearly looks as if they were in a different place at a different time and in different light. Because people will just ignore your film and laugh about the poster on the Internet instead.

The poster for The Accidental Husband is a particularly fine example, given that it looks like the three actors here were all blatantly at three different photoshoots.

Irrelevant ‘From The' lines

It's worth promoting the fact that a director with a past success is behind a new film, and, likewise, if a writer as a major success in their past, then why not cite that too? But few things scream ‘crappy movies' louder than resorting to ‘From The Executive Producer Of' or, even worse than that, ‘From The Studio That Brought You...'. That's especially bad if it's citing a decent but generic rom-com as its previous work. Seriously: who walked out of The Proposal and thought I must seek out more films from the company that released it?

From the studio that brought you? It's a bit like saying it's from the accountants who greenlit the last hit film isn't it? It's hardly a sign that two hours of creative genius awaits...

Movie Star Names Above Titles Of Animated Films

Just take a look at this poster from Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs. We've nothing against the film, which went on to make a genuinely staggering and impressive amount of money. But seriously, when it comes to an animated film, what's actually the point of a list of movie star names above the title?

This is one of many examples we could have cited, but when was the last time you were umming and ahhing about seeing something like Ice Age, then read that, for example, Denis Leary was on voicing duties, and promptly stumped up for your ticket?

Do people really scour the poster sites to see what animated project Brad Pitt is lending his voice to next? Or do they instead like to watch films with movie stars where they can see them too, rather than listen to the three days worth of recording work they did in a sound booth?

Plus one bugbear...

One Poster For Every Character In The Entire Franchise

This is the modern bugbear more than something to put you off a film. But now it seems that a poster campaign increasingly has to introduce you to each character in turn. This is particularly irritating with kids movies, where you're supposed to be able to differentiate one computer generated animal from another. But its roots even go back to the days of Batman & Robin...

Add your own suggestions in the comments....!

See also:

• Top 10 Movie Posters
• 10 Terrible Movie Posters
• How to sell a movie that everyone hates