Friday One Sheet: CRIME 101

After the opening credits and marketing from HBO's True Detective, the silhouette/landscape design trope became fairly ubiquitous in movie posters. Noteworthy that the key art for Denis Villeneuve's criminally under seen Enemy kind of got there first. I am generally a fan of this style, although it can seem a bit 'photoshop lazy' sometimes. 

For this poster for Bart Layton's Crime 101, I do appreciate the minimalism, as well as the creamy negative space. It is more of a teaser poster, with no credit block or other frills, so fair enough. Given that the film also features Nick Nolte and Jennifer Jason Leigh, it looks like they ran out of space in Chris Hemsworth's head for two big star cameos.

There is a curious aliasing around outside of the mask, that has to be intentional, but I cannot fathom why, perhaps the lay of the knit balaclava? Still, I like the effect of the wool texture, making the skyline sunset have a textured gradient.

Furthermore, having the chunky font and the rest of the text simply be cut out to show the same colour as the background. Chef's kiss. We are not re-inventing the wheel here with this design but its restrained minimalism more than communicates the slick nature of what I expect the 2026 crime film will be.