I have always found opening scenes of movies fascinating, since that’s what the director has primarily to pull you into the action. Sometimes, opening credits are not included and the movie starts immediately. More often, the credits are done seamlessly with the substance of the movie itself.
What are some of the best movie scenes that roll over the opening credits or are in place of them?
A recent one for me: Fight Club, where computer-animated neurons and other internal parts of the Narrator’s skull are overlayed with credits, as we travel outward from the center of his brain to the gun in his mouth.
Hah, I just got around to watching it last night, and it is the first film I thought of. In fact the credits were the only thing worth watching in that film. Very well done.
Likewise in many James Bond movies the opening credits are the best part.
Catch Me if you Can deserves a mention of course but I tend to remember the strangely unsettling ones. To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, with Bernstein’s score and the pan over all the toys Boo hides in the tree. Also, Panic Room with the “Titles from God” floating around a dimly lit NYC. Then there is Twin Peaks, also haunting and unsettling, yet beautiful at the same time. And I remember the jitterbug scene at the start of Mullholland Drive, but I don’t remember if was a short scene or if it went with the credits.
Hostage, the one with Bruce Willis, is also cool and inventive.
Best opening scene under credits is, of course, Touch of Evil. It’s one of the most famous scenes in cinema history – three minutes of a single shot that weaves around the characters.
Of course, it wasn’t intended to be under the credits; the studio added them after taking the movie out of Welles’s hands. Current versions of the film have the credits removed, but when I first saw it in the 1970s, they were still there.
Surprisingly to some, the Wolverine:Origin’s Opening Credits was the best thing of the entire Movie, and I actually enjoyed the rest of the film too. But the opening was beautifully done w/ the transitions, the music, and the pauses.
Yes. Joss Whedon had seen Touch of Evil. As had Robert Altman before he made The Player. You can’t take a film course without knowing about Welles’s shot and it’s considered one of the greatest in film history.
I came to mention Watchmen, Lord of War and Snatch. They are all great.
I would also like to add that I loved Watchmen and I don’t understand why people pile on it.
To me the OP is an oxymoron: you can’t have a good scene if the credits are rolling. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I hate this practice. Its movie making self indulgence at its worst. Why the hell are you interrupting my movie watching experience with indications of who made it? Your ego too big to fit in the space left in the film after the movie finishes? Are you worried I won’t read your name unless it’s imposed on something I actually want to watch? Rack the hell off, fer ogsakes and let me watch the movie.
Well, do you actually sit around at the end and watch the credits? If not, you don’t really have any room to talk. You’re the reason they have to do that, to make sure you actually know who created or was in the film. If you don’t, then you likely won’t see other films that have the same people, as you won’t know.
Finally, if you’re watching it in a movie theater, you’ve already put up with a bunch of ads and junk. A credited opening is a way to gradually get you from that to the tone of the movie, instead of just flipping a switch. And, if it’s a DVD/Blueray, you can always skip them if you don’t like them.
It’s probably not the best ever, but I really do enjoy the opening credits of Men in Black, following a dragonfly on the highway until it gets squashed by a truck. It’s a surreal focus on a mundane thing, and it sets the tone for the movie pretty well.
I can’t find it online, but the FIRST movie I thought of was The Stunt Man. BRILLIANT opening credits. Can someone smarter than me maybe find a clip of out out there somewhere?
The poor little guy is just minding his own business, quietly going about his life. Little does he know he has a very undignified end coming and we are watching his last seconds as he even dodges death once and is probably thinking “Whew that was close. Need to be more careful in the future.” and BAM! He’s dead a few seconds later.
