In a world where hundreds upon hundreds of movies get released every single calendar year, there’s really only a couple of ways for a film to stand out from the pack. Especially in the age of viral content on social media, a great poster — complete with a very clever tagline — can do just that.
The origins of advertising slogans and taglines supposedly dates back to England in the late 1850s. Their use in film marketing is at least a century old. (The poster for the 1920s German silent horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari included the tagline “You must become Caligari!” which is a very fun phrase to scream in a thick German accent.) Today it’s almost a requirement of the form: If your film gets a poster (which every film does) it’s got to have a snappy tagline. Below, I’ve picked 25 of the snappiest from the last ten years of cinema.
Now I want to make it very clear: A film’s inclusion on this list is in no way a reflection of my opinion of its actual content. Some of the films I picked are great, and also happened to have really memorable taglines. Others are totally forgettable — in fact, the only thing I remember about a couple of these movies are their taglines.
And then there are the picks — including a few near the very top of my list — that are promoting absolutely awful movies. One sparked a brutal legal battle that flies in the very face of the values espoused by the film! The tagline’s still great though. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
Here are my picks for the best taglines of the last 10 years…
The 25 Best Movie Taglines of the Last 10 Years (2016-2025)
Picking the very best lines from movie posters over the last decade.
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