The 50 Greatest Opening Title Sequences of All Time

Giving some credit to the finest opening credits ever made.

45. “Magnum Force” (1973)
Directed by Ted Post

There were two stars in the original “Dirty Harry:” Clint Eastwood and the .44 caliber Magnum handgun, “the most powerful handgun in the world.” If you’re coming back for the sequel, you’re coming back to see both; c’mon, they even put the gun in the movie’s title. That’s why I love the blunt simplicity of “Magnum Force”‘s credits: a man’s burly digits wrapped around an enormous handgun in ever tightening closeup. Lalo Schifrin’s music features a woman’s chorus singing a celebratory chant; the whole thing is like a religious ceremony given to praise God for inventing this incredibly mighty weapon. When director Ted Post’s name flashes onscreen, the hand pulls the hammer back and the points the gun right at the camera. We hear Eastwood repeat his famous lines: “Do you feel lucky?” The gun fires, we cut to black. It’s a perfect encapsulation of our country’s perverse obsession with firearms. We’re fascinated by them, even when they’re pointed right in our face. –MS

44. “Charade” (1963)
Directed by Stanley Donen

Title designer Maurice Binder had a rare gift for transforming story and character into graphic design. The opening titles for Stanley Donen’s great espionage thriller “Charade” begin and end with the image of two arrows circling one another in an endless loop, a brilliant summation of the opposites-attract chemistry between stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Each time Hepburn thinks she’s uncovered the truth about Grant’s character, another layer of deception is revealed and the downward spiral continues. Notice, too, how those arrow graphics seemlessly blend in to the next image, and to the next, and so on; another metaphor for Grant’s character and his continually evolving identity. Other strikingly symbolic visuals include a maze for the labyrinthian plot and spinning wheels for the trains that are so crucial to the story (we’ve already seen a corpse thrown off of one). Henry Mancini’s musical accompaniment is suitably enticing and unique in its own right; when was the last time you heard this much wood block in a musical score? –MS

43. “The Naked Kiss” (1964)
Directed by Samuel Fuller

In his autobiography “A Third Face,” director Sam Fuller lays out one of his movie philosophies: “If a story doesn’t give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamn garbage.” His independent production “The Naked Kiss” fulfills his dictum and then some. It opens with a close-up of actress Constance Towers, playing a cheated prostitute, swinging her purse toward the camera. In the reverse shot we see a john getting clobbered. It’s a scene of pure pulp intensity that peaks with the punch-drunk man knocking off Towers’ wig, revealing her gleaming bald dome. It only makes her angry. After she contemptuously snags her money, Fuller poses her once again in a close-up, staring straight at the viewer, as she slaps the wig back on and the title flashes onto the screen in big block letters. The rest of the credits roll as as she delicately applies makeup, ready to take on the world. –R. Emmet Sweeney

42. “The Kingdom” (2007)
Directed by Peter Berg

“The Kingdom” is a police procedural set amidst the complex political climate of Saudi Arabia, a complex political climate that ignorant American audiences know very little about. Hence the titles of “The Kingdom,” an ingenious primer on 75 years of Middle Eastern history designed by the PIC Agency. In a little over three minutes we learn everything we need to know about the world of “The Kingdom,” from the rise of Aramco and the Saudi Western housing compounds to the first Gulf War and Osama bin Laden. The huge gulps of exposition go down surprisingly smoothly, thanks to the sequence’s dynamic visual storytelling. The alliance between the U.S. and Israel is brilliantly summed up by the image of the Israeli Star of David dissolving into the stars and stripes of the American flag, and the unspoken underpinnings of our war on terror are exposed in the devastating moment when a bar graph showing the United States to be the largest consumer of oil in the world morphs into the Twin Towers as they’re struck by the hijacked planes on 9/11. Anyone paying attention’s not so ignorant anymore. –MS

41. “Snatch” (2000)
Directed by Guy Ritchie

Opening credits for actors are commonplace, obviously, but opening credits for characters are comparatively rare. Rather than name Dennis Farina, Brad Pitt, and Benicio Del Toro, guys we’re all quite familiar with anyway, the titles for “Snatch” introduce us to the men they’re playing: Cousin Avi, Mickey, and Franky Four Fingers, respectively. This technique is particularly welcome in a film like “Snatch” which contains so many plot threads featuring so many characters, all of whom speak with incoherently thick British accents. Director Guy Ritchie also gets bonus style points for fluidity. The transitions between characters are insanely clever: The camera zooms in on the enormous diamond in Franky’s four fingered hand and when it zooms out, it’s in the mitts of Cousin Avi. He puts the diamond in his safe, and the camera pans through the wall to another room, where Sol (Lennie James) is pulling some cash from his safe. He tosses the cash into the air and it lands on a table in front of Mickey, and so on. Ritchie isn’t just introducing us to all the characters, he’s introducing us to the connections between them, and preparing us for the idea that the plot of this movie can careen off in a new direction at any moment. –MS

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