The 50 Greatest Opening Title Sequences of All Time

Giving some credit to the finest opening credits ever made.

20. “The Conversation” (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Filmed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler before he was replaced (due to creative differences with director Francis Ford Coppola) by Bill Butler, “The Conversation”’s opening, like all great intro sequences, firmly establishes the film’s themes, mood and momentum. Taking a cue from “Psycho,” it begins with a wide-angled macro image of its central locale (San Francisco’s Union Square) before slowly zooming in to its micro object of attention (a couple walking and talking around the park). This one protracted shot conveys not only the surveillance profession of eavesdropper protagonist Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who’s spied in the courtyard as well, but also the film’s interest in the cinematic camera’s voyeuristic gaze. Fundamentally though, Coppola’s classic centers on the troubling, unreliable disconnect between audio and video (especially as relates to their proximity to each other), a tension felt in the increasing volume of Union Square noises as the camera moves closer to its subjects. –NS

WATCH THE OPENING CREDITS TO “THE CONVERSATION” ON The Art of the Title.

19. “Alien” (1979)
Directed by Ridley Scott

Sometimes less is far, far more, as is the case with “Alien”‘s opening, designed by Richard Greenberg. Over a shot of infinitely dark space, Jerry Goldstein’s haunting score comes in slowly, full of strange clanking noises and eerily hollow tones. The camera pans right over an eclipsing planet as main credits appear in the center of the screen and, more crucially still, strange linear shapes at the top of the screen begin to change in telling ways. The effect is to immediately concentrate attention on the frame, to demand engagement for the surprises that lurk in the darkness, and before long, those geometric lines begin to take on a form — the film’s title. This reveal proves as disquietingly deliberate and menacing as the camera’s measured movement, and it exhibits, in as few gestures as possible, a slow, sinister sense of mutation that carries through to the film’s human-alien chest-bursting apex. –NS

18. “Shaft” (1971)
Directed by Gordon Parks

Everyone knows the titles to “Shaft” — Richard Roundtree walking to his office in Times Square to the sounds of Isaac Hayes’ supremely funky title song. That wakka-cha-wakka beat, Roundtree’s brown leather trenchcoat, his middle finger to the cab that tries to cut him off in a crosswalk, it’s a familiar classic. But most miss the richness of the sequence’s details: in particular, the clever way director Gordon Parks uses the Deuce’s grindhouse marquees to comment upon Shaft’s status as one of Hollywood’s first black action heroes. In one take, Roudntree walks toward the camera from deep in the background along a bustling sidewalk; the top right of the frame is filled with a marquee, but most of the writing on it is obscured by a subway entrance lamppost. The only words we can make out are “NEW POLICY,” as in, the fact that “Shaft” even exists represents an exciting new policy for studio filmmaking. A few shots later Shaft pushes his way through a crowd of protesters beneath another marquee. This part of this one that we can make out reads “All Color.” The significance is clear again, for those who can dig it. –MS

17. “Mean Streets” (1973)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

Though it’s not actually his first film, a selected history of Martin Scorsese usually begins with “Mean Streets,” both his most personal film and the one that established the key elements of what would become his signature style. In the opening moments we hear the voice Charlie (Harvey Keitel) over a black screen: “You don’t make up for your sins in church,” he says. “You do it in the streets.” Is Charlie talking to us or to himself? As if in reply to that question, the first shot of the film is of Charlie bolting upright in bed, as though waking from a bad dream. The sound of traffic — horns that give way to sirens — comes in through the window as Charlie moves to a mirror, then returns to bed. His recline is broken up by three jump cuts spaced to complement the opening beats of The Ronettes classic “Be My Baby.” A close up of Charlie’s face as he settles back into his pillow is followed by a push in on a 16mm projector; as the titles come up home movie images flicker past. There’s Charlie in the streets of New York City with his wise guy cohorts; Charlie at the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy; Charlie at a baptism eating cake and kissing relatives; Charlie shaking hands with his priest on the church steps. The contrast of the private, tormented Charlie and the more performative one known to his community sets up the tension that the rest of “Mean Streets” teases out with the same poignancy and personal flair that Scorsese packs into the film’s first frames. –MO

16. “Lord of War” (2005)
Directed by Andrew Niccol

“There are times when people work for nothing on a movie,” “Lord of War” director Andrew Niccol says on the film’s DVD commentary. “In this case, people actually paid the production to work on this sequence.” Although he was referring to the fact that he had to “beg” for additional funds four months after production wrapped for this brilliant sequence, it is the rare opening credits good enough for some sequence designers to waive their fee to work on. Ultimately, French visual effects specialist Yann Blondel did the heavy lifting, creating the bullet we follow from factory to AK-47 out of CGI, as well as much of the machinery that creates it; Niccol shot the rest in three days in South Africa with cinematographer Amir Mokri operating his own motion control camera. The result is a perfectly executed preface that sets up the reality of the film immediately (in terms of detailing the process, if not necessarily the overly pixilated bullet) while employing Buffalo Springfield’s anti-war “For What It’s Worth” as a tongue-in-cheek nod to what’s to come. –SS

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