The 50 Greatest Opening Title Sequences of All Time

Giving some credit to the finest opening credits ever made.

40. “The Shining” (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick’s Stephen King adaptation opens not with dialogue or even humans but with an aerial shot over a river surrounded by mountain ranges. Nothing ominous about that, except for the unsettling weightlessness of the camera, and the way it tilts its gaze on its side as if the world had momentarily lost its mooring. The camera soon finds its nominal focus on a car containing Jack Nicholson’s dad, Shelley Duvall’s wife, and Danny Lloyd’s son as it drives along a tree-lined road. As the film’s credits begin to roll up from the bottom of the frame, our point-of-view (mirroring the text’s trajectory) moves increasingly toward the vehicle until it feels as if we’re stalking it. That the chillingly methodical camera then zooms past the car and off into the air — a moment of surprising tension accompanied by the aural transition from Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind’s theme to inhuman howling noises — makes the sequence even more startling. Apparently, it’s all just an initial drive-by before the true mayhem begins. By the time the scene reaches the haunted Overlook Hotel there’s no doubt that horror lies in wait, for both the car’s passengers and for us. –NS

39. “Blast of SIlence” (1961)
Directed by Allen Baron

We sometimes say great movies speak to us, but we usually don’t mean it literally. But “Blast of Silence,” Allen Baron’s bleakly poetic New York Noir from 1961, quite literally does speak to us, with an unusual second person perspective narration. It begins with the very first image of the film, a white speck against a black screen. “Remembering out of the black silence, you were born in pain,” a voice says. The white speck grows larger, the light at the end of a literal and proverbial tunnel. The narrator continues, “You were born with hate and anger built in. Took a slap on the backside to blast out the scream. And then you knew you were alive…later you learned to hold back the scream and let out the hate and anger another way.” With that the invisible train that’s been carrying us blasts through the exit of the tunnel just as the title crawls into view. There’s all kinds of metaphors brewing here, for life and death, for murder and moviemaking. The narrator is speaking directly to the main character, hitman Frank Bono (Baron). But then again, maybe he isn’t. –MS

38. “Go” (1999)
Directed by Doug Liman

Want to know what it feels like to take ecstasy? Watch the opening of Doug Liman’s “Go.” I’ve never taken E myself, but the folks I know who have swear by Liman’s faithful recreation of rolling. Seconds into the film, the glacial grandeur of the Columbia Pictures logo gets unceremoniously interrupted by a rave’s frenetic lights and music. In a clever visual joke, the party itself plays the role of party crasher; in this movie, even the logo had to, ahem, go. There isn’t anything revolutionary about “Go”‘s titles — it doesn’t take a creative genius to start a movie about drug culture with a rave — but Liman’s execution is perfect. Everything’s blacklit, everyone’s moving at hyperspeed, and everything seems to be swimming in a sea of liquid colors. The vibe’s so good you almost regret that the movie has to start. But that’s the way it goes. –MS

37. “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (2005)
Directed by Shane Black

Even though Danny Yount has credited Saul Bass as an inspiration for the design of the opening titles for Shane Black’s murder mystery “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” the sequence is a true original. Yount’s job — striking the right tone somewhere between classic and contemporary — had to be intimidating. But he managed to hit that perfect note of retro cool, and his creation bursts at the seams with affection for the crime genre, honoring every element of detective story lore from blood splatters to jail breaks to the promise of guns and curvy femme fatales. Yount’s abstract imagery — expressionless figures and undefined locations — and composer John Ottman’s nimble score build anticipation for a great mystery while allowing the film that follows to pay it off. According to WatchTheTitles.com, producer Joel Silver had planned to commission just a fraction of what ultimately made it into the film before being impressed enough by Yount’s ‘60s-style concept to extend the sequence. The impression it left on moviegoers who saw this underrated gem lasted even longer. –Stephen Saito

36. “Dawn of the Dead” (2004)
Directed by Zack Snyder

To remake a genre classic is to court fanboys’ immediate ire. But Zack Snyder quickly won many over with the intro to his re-do of George A. Romero’s beloved zombie saga, kickstarting the action with a balls-to-the-wall opening that culminates with a hood-of-the-car POV shot of a suburban apocalypse. When Sarah Polly’s car crashes into the ditch and the screen goes black, it’s like a gunshot exclamation point, and leads immediately to a montage that blends credits (smearily wiped away like blood), schizo verité footage of mass unrest and hysteria, staged images of zombie madness, and a fictional TV press conference in which an official claims not to know anything helpful about the zombie outbreak. Cue Johnny Cash’s “The Man Who Comes Around,” an unforgettably beautiful song of biblical desolation and apocalyptic hopelessness that’s so chilling and so apt for an end-of-the-world saga that it transforms the sequence into the high watermark of the entire film. –NS

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