Until the 80's and the mushrooming video market, X-rated theaters had their own distribution of films and advertising materials outside of the mainstream movie studio distribution. These materials were very similar to the main stream advertising packages except on a lot smaller budget. Usually the advertising program would consist of a one sheet, (sizes would very from 24x36 to 27x41) and a type of pressbook that would focus less on cast and more on marketing hype.

With the rise of the video stores, the advertising packages shifted to a 2 to 4 sheet ad sheet that doubled as a small poster and some larger posters were available.

Cable TV took another bite out of this market. X-rated movies are still produced (in fact in larger numbers) and are still shown in X-rated theatres throughout the country, but the primary focus is now cable and video marketing so there's a lot less advertising material available than before.

Since an X-rated movie was rarely shown in a "mainstream" theatre, (there are some NSS distributed X-rated films) and the material harder to find than conventional material, their movie posters are sought-after by 'special interest collectors' who prefer collecting the materials on these limited distribution films.

For a list of the X-rated posters listed by year of distribution, click here