The Ultimate Movie Poster Frame! 🎥 Fits 2 Sizes With Hidden Storage

Let's make the ultimate movie poster frame that fits multiple sizes and can store your extra movie posters.

I've grown a fairly large collection of movie posters and I like displaying them but I only have so much wall space in my house. So I rotate them out fairly often but it's kinda cumbersome to change them and I never liked rolling them up and having to find somewhere to store them.

So I came up with the idea for this frame that:

• Can accommodate two standard poster sizes (24"x36" and 27"x40"),
• Makes hanging easy using a French cleat system,
• And has storage for more posters while they're not being used.

For this project, you'll need:

• A 27"x40" wooden poster frame. I used this one from Hobby Lobby. Or you can build your own too.
• Matboard that's at least 27"x40" or larger. I got mine at Hobby Lobby.
• Foam Board that's at least 27"x40" or larger. I got mine at Hobby Lobby again.
• (4) Name Tag Neodymium Magnets like these.
• Black spray paint
• 1x4 wood board (actual size)
• Basic wood working tools

We'll begin by making the frame that goes behind the poster frame and holds the extra posters.

I really wanted 1 inch of depth for poster storage. Even though wood generally comes standard at 3/4" or 1.5", I felt that would be too thin or too wide. So I was able to find some wood trim that had the actual dimensions of 1"x4".

I ripped that down to 1"x1" strips although you can probably find some square dowels to skip that step.

For the top French cleat, I ripped a piece that was 1"x1.5" and cut the 45 degree angle into the wider side. If you've never heard of or done a French cleat it's essentially a way of securing objects to a wall with a molding with a 45 degree slope. It's very strong and makes it easy to hang and remove objects. Look it up, you'll find tons of uses for this system once you know about it!

Now we can assemble the poster storage frame.

The interior dimensions you'll want to achieve are 27.5" x 40.5". That'll give you just enough wiggle room to store 27"x40" posters back there.

Make sure to use the French cleat piece you cut for the top piece of the frame as well. You'll want to mount this down about .5" from the top to account for the other piece of the French cleat too.

Make sure you get it nice and square. I just drilled screws through the side to hold it together but there's probably a more elegant solution you can do to hide the screws. Although, after I painted mine, the screws are hardly visible.

Next, you'll want to paint the frame you built to match your poster frame. Mine is black, so I painted mine black to match.

Don't forget to paint the other half of you French cleat as well.

Then, we'll attach the top part of the French cleat to the top of the poster frame. This is why you want a wooden poster frame, so you can drill and screw this cleat into it.

Now we'll cut some matboard which allows us to use a 24"x36" poster in this 27"x40" frame if you want.

Generally a frame or mat overlaps the photo behind it by 1/4" on each side, 1/2" total. So cut your matboard to have an exterior dimension of 27"x40" and an interior dimension of 23.5" x 35.5"

This can be tricky but utilize a straight edge and clamps, go slowly, and you'll be fine.

Now we'll prep some foam board so that it can hold and store extra posters. We'll use Neodymium Magnets for name tags in order to secure the posters to the foam board.

Begin by cutting the foam board down to 27.125" x 40.125"

Next, draw a 24"x36" rectangle in the middle and adhere a metal strip from the name tag magnets in each corner.

Now it's time to hang the poster storage frame on the wall.

You're able to position it wherever you'd like and then drill screws right through the frame directly into studs in the wall.

Make sure to get it mounted level and square.

Pop your favorite movie poster into the frame. You can use a 27" x 40" poster or use the mat you made to matte it down to 24"x36" if needed. I found that a small piece of artist tape helped on the corner when using the mat.

Grab your collection of movie posters and place them on the foam board, line them up, and use the magnets to secure them. The magnets are quite strong and can hold about 20 posters. They can even hold the mat when not in use.

You can then place your poster storage board directly into the storage frame on the wall. I found that putting the foam board side out worked well.

Then all you have to do is hang up the poster frame on that using the French cleat, nice and simple.

Overall, this works really well! It hold about 20 posters and stores then safely and flat, which is much easier than rolling and unrolling them.

And I really like that it accommodates the two most common poster sizes. It's really fun to buy movie posters and know that I'll have a place to store and display them. We love changing them out to match the holidays with some horror movies for halloween time for example.

I feel like there may be some improvements because it's still a bit tedious to change out the posters but I'm not quite sure what those improvements are yet. Let me know if you have any ideas and please let me know if you end up building this, I love hearing from others!

You can find me at @travisderose on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for more retro and prop related projects like this!

-Travis