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Vote! Coolest Bollywood posters, 2011

Posters are usually our first glimpse of a film, the first time we start to get a feel of the kind of film the makers are giving us, the direction they're intending to take.

We've already looked at the coolest international movie posters of 2011. Here are some Hindi film posters that seem to be doing their job right:

Dhobi Ghat

Mumbai silhouetted beautifully in watercolour, this poster makes sense more because Aamir Khan's character is an artist discovering a city populated by the other characters.

Prateik Babbar, the Dhobi of the film's title, is tellingly left colourless, however.

Saat Khoon Maaf

The main Saat Khoon Maaf poster featuring Priyanka Chopra and the number '7' looked somewhat reminiscent of the poster for Angelina Jolie's Salt, so we picked one of the character posters, this utterly irresistible pulp-novel style design. Awesome.

Delhi Belly

The standard Delhi Belly poster made the three boys look like zombies, but this one, featuring the girl in the paper bag and the guns, works fantastically well simply because of their disparate expressions and the unlikeliness of the situation.

Also, the Rajni t-shirt: always a good idea.

That Girl In Yellow Boots

Trust Anurag Kashyap to do what others wouldn't.

With a title like that you'd expect a black and white picture with just the boots coloured yellow, but Kashyap, with an intense film unlike its potentially sunny title, paints everything yellow here -- except the word yellow. Striking.

Shor In The City

This distinctly unique Shor In The City poster shows us the films four protagonists, three of them with heads split wide open like precisely broken coconuts.

The 'Be bad or be dead' tagline, along with the lack of information about the characters, works as a very tantalising teaser.

Shaitan

As visually trippy posters go, this one makes quite an impact. Kalki Koechlin straddles the butt of a gun, one half of her screaming.

Everyone on the right side of the mirror image is screaming, actually, while the electric use of colour makes this a hard poster to look away from.

Bodyguard

A poster needs to play up the movie's strengths, and going by that brief, this one for Bodyguard goes all out to promise you an overdose of Salman.

Four of them, aviator sunglasses in place, secure Kareena Kapoor, standing pretty in the middle of 'em all like a cat who got the cream.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster

The title does it all, really. The words 'A royal threesome' help in setting the mood, and the pulpy poster for the awesomely named Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster immediately has us hooked.

From the effeminate way Jimmy Shergill holds his gun to Mahie Gill's playmate pose, this poster screams of cheeky, quirky fun.

Soundtrack

Rajeev Khandelwal screaming Shaitanistically wearing flaming headphones?

A poster that looks like a rave? There's a bit too much going on here with the Soundtrack poster but it is definitely enough to get us curious.

Pyaar Ka Punchnama

The earnestness of the boys sells this one. Three hapless men stand around helplessly, strung like puppets under three girls, each looking pleased as punch to be stringing the men along.

Add to it that big bright pink heart, and you know Pyaar Ka Punchnama will be a different film. And it was.