Of all the movie genres, science fiction has provided poster artists with the greatest imaginative freedom and wildest sources of inspiration, and the artists have responded by creating some of their very best examples of their work, from the iconic figure of the female robot in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" to the familiar shapes of R2D2 and C3P0 from "Star Wars". This collection, starting with the original 1912 French poster for "Conquest of the Pole", features posters for all the sci-fi fans' favourite movies: "2001", "Bladerunner", "Close Encounters", "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", "Forbidden Planet", "Planet of the Apes", "Rollerball" and series such as the "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and "Alien" films, as well as lesser known or long-forgotten works like "Girl in the Moon", "Invaders from Mars" and B-feature films featuring Flash Gordon and the 1940s American superheroes such as Superman and Batman. Moreover, although many of the films may be familiar, a fair proportion of the posters will not. For alongside the widely-used British and American posters the editors have juxtaposed the work, often previously unpublished in book form, of Czech, French, German, Italian, Polish and other foreign poster artists which frequently provides a startling and fascinating contrast to the posters that Western fans remember and cherish. Thus there are no less than eight posters for "Planet of the Apes", British, US, French, two different German styles, and images from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania - four different posters for "The Man Who Fell to Earth", six different takes on "Barbarella" and eight efforts to capture the enigmatic message of "2001: A Space Odyssey".