Renato Casaro's Amazing Sci-Fi Artwork Will Live Forever
The painter was 89 when he passed away.
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, movie posters were works of art. From Drew Struzan’s unforgettable posters for Indiana Jones and Back to the Future to Bob Peak’s incredible work on posters for Apocalypse Now, Superman, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the marketing dollars that went straight to visual artists were clearly well spent. The bygone era of movie poster art had one other reigning champion, the renowned artist Renato Casaro. In the arena of posters for science fiction and fantasy films, Casaro was unrivaled. For the most part, the pieces he created looked more like lush, painterly book covers than simple film posters.
At the age of 89, the Italian artist has passed away, according to Deadline. In honor of him, here’s a selection of some of Casaro’s best sci-fi and fantasy artwork, from Solaris to Dune and beyond.
Solaris (1972)
The 1972 poster for Solaris.
The one-of-a-kind 1972 film from director Andrei Tarkovsky has plenty of striking visuals of its own. Thanks to the near-perfect 1961 novel from Stanislaw Lem, the story of an intelligent, bewildering planet, and the ghosts it creates, has haunted science fiction circles for generations. Casaro’s poster is a perfect representation of the film: Is this astronaut a ghost? Haunted by ghosts? Yes, it’s all of the above. Maybe.
You can buy Casaro’s Solaris poster here.
Conan: The Barbarian (1982) and Red Sonja (1985)
Conan: The Barbarian (1982)
You’d be forgiven if you thought this striking poster for Conan: The Barbarian was something done by fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. And that’s because with this one, Casaro knew his audience. Just as Frazetta helped redefine sword-and-sorcery art, Casaro figured out how to bring that style to the first poster for the first Arnold Schwarzenegger-led Conan movie. He later repeated this trick with the 1985 fantasy film Red Sonja.
Red Sonja (1985).
You can purchase the Conan and Red Sonja posters here and here.
Flash Gordon (1980)
Flash Gordon (1980).
The original sci-fi hero of the early 20th century got a big, colorful, and utterly campy reboot in 1980 with the Dino De Laurentiis-produced Flash Gordon. Casaro’s version of the movie poster actually seems to represent a better, pulpier, and cooler version of what we got.
You can snag Casaro’s Flash Gordon poster on sale here.
Dune (1984)
Renato Casaro’s Dune (1984) poster.
Arguably, the most stylish and aesthetically original version of Dune ever committed to film, David Lynch’s 1984 take on Frank Herbert’s massive science fiction novel has never really been topped. Yes, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films feel perfectly aligned with a certain vision of Dune, but Lynch’s film simply looks cooler and feels more otherworldly than any version that’s been created since. Casaro’s poster perfectly captures the look and feel of this Dune, and also correctly places both Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan) and his mother, Jessica (Francesca Annis), as the major players on the Atreides side, while Feyd (Sting) and the Baron (Kenneth McMillan) represent the Harkonnens. Of note, Jessica is in full Bene Gesserit attire here, which is, in a way, something of a spoiler.
You can purchase Casaro’s Dune poster art here.
The Neverending Story (1984)
Casaro’s poster for The NeverEnding Story.
Casaro was dominating movie posters in 1984! In addition to Dune, the fantasy epic The NeverEnding Story was another poster Casaro created that year. While other posters for this movie certainly exist, this one feels closest to the 1970 fantasy novel from which the movie came. There’s almost a Tolkien-esque quality to the way Casaro crafted this poster, instilling the idea of this story into our minds before we’d even seen it.
You can snag this NeverEnding Story poster for sale here.
Total Recall (1990)
The Casaro poster for Total Recall (1990).
One of Paul Verhoeven’s greatest films, the 1990 film Total Recall, took one of Philip K. Dick’s better short stories (“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”) and made it into a blistering action thriller. Casaro’s take on the poster dives deep into the sci-fi elements of the film, and might be one of his coolest pieces, ever.
This poster is a bit harder to track down in real life, however. You may have to scour eBay to find it.
