Giving some credit to the finest opening credits ever made.
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
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
14. "Catch Me If You Can" (2002)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
A stand-alone graphic sequence reminiscent of those prefacing 1960s capers like "Charade" and the "Pink Panther" films, the opening titles of Steven Spielberg’s "Catch Me If You Can" are a startling blend of style and narrative invention. Designed by the crazy hip Paris-based duo of Oliver Kuntzel and Florence Deygas, the sequence blends hand-stamp and computer animation for an atmospheric look that situates the story to come -- that of the notorious mid-century con man Frank Abagnale and the FBI agent on his tail -- in its native era. Stylized, silhouetted figures of Abagnale and Agent Hanratty interact with the titles themselves, which are stretched and pulled into backdrop duty for the cleverly detailed scenarios. Those scenarios anticipate the film’s story: Abagnale is depicted as a pilot, then a doctor, then a businessman, and in each brief sequence Hanratty is shown in pursuit and gaining ground. Kuntzel and Deygas create a sense of forward movement by giving the chase a left-to-right trajectory, with Abagnale slipping down corridors, passing through transformative walls and at one point using the elongated stem of a ‘p’ as an escape rope. Conducting the entire exercise are the hushed, tip-toe syncopations of longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams’s score. --MO
3. "Se7en" (1995)
Directed by David Fincher
A credits sequence that has itself been credited with reviving the great tradition of elaborate credits sequences, the indelible, unsettling opening titles of "Se7en," David Fincher’s meticulously tailored serial killer procedural, have prompted many grubby, psycho-chic imitators over the years. Fincher hired a designer named Kyle Cooper to take on the sequence, but he was very much involved in its conception and execution. Cooper watched the film numerous times then set out to create a mood piece that would engage with the theme and plot of the film in both abstract and concrete ways. Capturing the insular, obsessive quality of the killer at the center of "Se7en" was the driving aesthetic force: distant, mechanical beats clang and squeak on the soundtrack -- the song is Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” re-mixed by Coil and Danny Hyde -- as though rising up from some dank, isolated cellar. Preceded by an image of a sleepless Morgan Freeman’s detective setting a metronome ticking, the credits suggest the X-ray opposite of a morally ordered mind. Fingers are shaved of their prints and then the nasty, bandaged versions scribble out a psychotic’s manifesto in nightmare flashes alternated with the actual titles, which were hand-scratched onto the film stock and then edited together in layers to pulse with jittery light. Even the names seem like fragments recovered from some unspeakably dark corner of the subconscious. The sequence took two days to shoot and five weeks to edit (those stubby fingers don't belong to Kevin Spacey, either, a choice that upset Fincher at first). Artisan work, not animation, achieved the texture and impact of this sequence; the grime of that toil feels embedded in the film itself. --MO
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When I found this, my first thought was "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang better be in there!" Because not only the movie is amazing, I vividly remember the opening credits being as great. I'd want it to be a lot higher in the list but these are some really good ones!
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