Movies which don't show the title until the end

[Keebleman]

The end of 'The End' was probably the late-60s.  The Graduate doesn't have it, but it does have the traditional format of all credits being at the front and only the cast list at the end.  2001 has 'The End' but I think that was because there needed to be something on screen while 'The Blue Danube' plays out: they had run out of people to be credited!

Of course, 2001 was fairly unusual for its time in having all credits at the end.  In the 70s there were three huge hits would have done a lot to popularize this format: The Exorcist, The Godfather and Star Wars.  I would say that the tipping point, when it became more common that not, was around 1990.  I remember being surprised that Lethal Weapon 2 had only the title at the front, as I associated that format with movies that were special in some way, which LW2 was certainly not.

[Brundle-Fly]

Years ago, when the opening credits were still running after the action has begun, my heart would sink, "Oh, it's a TV movie."

[AsparagusTrevor]

I can't remember the end of 'This is the End', did it have "This is the End" at the end? I remember thinking it should've had the song 'The End' at the end.

[MiddleRabbit]

I wonder if anyone's ever gone to the wrong screen and then the title's flipped up at the end and they've been all like 'oh fuck's sake mate I've gone and watched the wrong film like a fucking wally haven't I? I bet they'll not let me see the film I want now 'cos I've watched this one, fuck.'

Maybe, but in the olden days I worked as an usher at the local Odeon - when the films were sent in reels to be put together by projectionists - a film called White Sands (a three feel movie) was incorrectly spliced together.  Instead of 1 - 2 - 3, it went 3 - 1 - 2.

The result was that it just began cold and then the end credits rolled after not too long.  Then the beginning, er, began, followed normally by the middle, then it ended. 

A couple of hundred people saw it on the opening Friday and, of those people, only one queried it.

It didn't surprise me.  What I learned, working at the pictures, is that people don't go to the cinema to watch films, they go to eat expensive crap.

[mothman]

White Sands was probably improved, TBH.

[QDRPHNC]

Has anyone said Miami Vice?

[notjosh]

Do any movies still do the thing of having the title roll on again at the very end of the credits? It happens at the end of Die Hard, and it always makes me happy because it reminds me that I just watched Die Hard.

[greenman]

I can't remember the end of 'This is the End', did it have "This is the End" at the end? I remember thinking it should've had the song 'The End' at the end.

Apoc Now had it at the start.

[a duncandisorderly]

incorrectly spliced together.  Instead of 1 - 2 - 3, it went 3 - 1 - 2.

not a flick, but in the post-"trainspotting" read-it-on-the-tube hysteria that one often saw in late 90s london, I bought a copy of welsh's "filth", & got about halfway into what was a difficult & at times surreal read before I discovered that the various chunks of paperback had been glued into the cover in the wrong order. I only noticed this one day when, instead of folding down the corner of where I was up to, I chanced to look at the page number instead. threw it away.

[Dex Sawash]

Original and all remakes of Fin have the title at the end

[AsparagusTrevor]

I can't remember the end of 'This is the End', did it have "This is the End" at the end? I remember thinking it should've had the song 'The End' at the end.

Apoc Now had it at the start.

Yeah that was just confusing. There wasn't even a song at the end, I think the sound editor fucked up there.

[jobotic]

Original and all remakes of Fin have the title at the end

I love the end of films, can't get enough of them. I'm such a Fin Boy.

[thecuriousorange]

More films should finish with:

The End?

[Blumf]

More films should finish with:

The End?

Only if the question mark fades in.

[garnish]

Flash Gordon does this, with Ming's laughter playing in the background I think?

[Dr Rock]

Flash Gordon does this, with Ming's laughter playing in the background I think?

I think you're thinking of He-Man (Masters OF The Universe).

[mothman]

Nope, garnish is right.

(I feel like I've been saying that a lot, this week - my wife has been experimenting with garnishes)

[garnish]

I think you're thinking of He-Man (Masters OF The Universe).

I think He-Man has Skeletor (Frank Langella ffs) saying 'I'll be back'.

[Dr Rock]

I think you're thinking of Carry On Screaming.

[Blumf]

Flash Gordon does this, with Ming's laughter playing in the background I think?

<merciless laughter>

[Dr Rock]

That appearing question mark freaks me right out. Is it the end or not?? Aiee!

[Keebleman]

Re-booting this because I have just recalled a recent example of the phenom where it is, uniquely, entirely appropriate to have the title at the end: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  Its appearance at the very end of the narrative

Spoiler alert

underscores the wish-fulfillment aspect of the film.  You have been watching a fantasy.  Wouldn't have had that resonance at the start.

[close]

[sevendaughters]

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Bi Gan drops it like an hour from the end, it is an amazing wtf moment

[Billy]

There is the brilliant moment in 'Vice' when the end credits start running halfway through the film, to signify a false ending where Cheney decides to retire from politics in the late 1990s and never becomes, well, vice. At least one bloke at the cinema I worked at got up and left at this point, but maybe because he just thought the film was shit and that was a good get-out point.

I did burst out laughing at this moment in my screening, to be met by some odd looks from the confused 4 or 5 others who couldn't understand a) what was so funny and b) why the film had seemingly ended after only an hour.

[Midas]

It doesn't particularly bother me tbh, but proper title sequences at the beginning like those designed by Julian House for Berberian Sound Studio and Possum are nice.

EDIT: *GASP* I've been tricked into necro-posting!

[Keebleman]

Fun fact: the Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis doesn't have a title card anywhere, front or back.

The Zoom-horror Host is similarly 'untitled'.