Question for the Buffistas: what are your favourite movie title/credit sequences? The ones which begin the films, not the ones which end them.

My favorite title sequence is The Incredibles, but they're at the end of the film. (The Incredibles doesn't have an opening title sequence).

I feel like Seven had incredible opening titles, but now I can't remember why.

I like the opening credits for West Side Story, done over what look like abstract paintings, but then they resolve into the overhead view of Manhattan.

Question for the Buffistas: what are your favourite movie title/credit sequences?

Saul Bass, baby! The Man With the Golden Arm, West Side Story, Walk on the Wild Side, Vertigo, Age of Innocence.

I love the titles sequence for To Kill a Mockingbird, and wish the whole movie had been shot with as much cinematic style.

Pink Panther.

Coraline.

Sally Cruickshank did the animated titles for The Money Pit and they're pretty cool.

Favorite end title sequence: (by a long shot) A Series of Unfortunate Events. Man, that's a gorgeous sequence.

they're at the end of the film. (The Incredibles doesn't have an opening title sequence).

This is the thing. Nowadays you're lucky to even get the name of the film at the beginning.

I need some inspiration for my film history students, who have to create their own title sequence this semester.

I've already got: Catch Me If You Can / Honey I Shrunk the Kids (for animation); The Player, Groundhog Day, Back to the Future, L.A. Confidential, Hard Day's Night, North By Northwest and Sweet Smell of Success (for narrative). Go much further back and the title sequence is mostly just text and graphics and detached from the rest of the movie.

Edit: x-post with David. I've got North By Northwest as my Saul Bass, I love that.

Pink Panther! Nice one. Animation again.

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep 'em coming.

So, now I don't know why I was thinking it was so awesome, but it is distinct from the text-over-the-landscape thing, and gets you into the story: [link]

I like James Bond title sequences in general. Often better than the movie they are attached to.

It's the end credits of Seven that made a big impact on me. Just by running the text the other way, I think, but it was jarring. I was working in a movie theater when it came out, so I saw all the end credits while sweeping up and had opinions about most of them, that's the one that really sticks in my memory all these years later.

IIRC, the most clever of the classic Disney opening sequences was 101 Dalmatians, with the spots proliferating everywhere.