Some filmmakers don't necessarily want the opening credits to be purely informational. Think Fight Club for an example: you get the credits and you get an outstanding trip through a human brain.

My vote goes to Mon Oncle. The crew is credited as the camera moves over an industrial park, the names listed on ironwork. The title proper switches over to the quaint township, Mon Oncle printed on a aged cement gate while a dog plays in the foreground. I never watch it only once; it sometimes takes three tries to get started on the rest of the movie.

What are some of your favorites?

Yeah, I'm with you on Fight Club. I actually just watched that one again today and the opening credits sequence was one of many amazing things about that flick. I would also nominate the opening credits for Almost Famous, where the entire thing was laid out like scribbled journal notes...or the animated opening sequence of Juno. Very good stuff man!

Ah yes, Juno did have some good opening credits. Looking back to David Fincher's output reveals another sterling entry: Panic Room. The movie was incredibly, deeply disappointing in all sorts of despairing ways but those credits remain an extraordinary high point: cast and crew in metallic letters, hanging off of the most recognizable buildings in New York. Excellent work, Fincher.

Foxy Brown, the most awesome opening credits ever.

I can think of a few off the top of my head.

Most recently, Watchmen's credit sequence was amazing. The movie wasn't quite able to live up to that opening, but what a hard opening to live up to.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Coming as it did--what?--about 20 minutes into the movie it was a great emotional shift between the Montauk meet cute and the story to come.

Serenity - Masterful job of introducing you to the cast of characters (including the ship), ending on that great shot of River and Joss Whedon's credit.

I just finished re-watching Hard Candy and I liked that opening sequence a lot.

Alien. Remember the way the letters form piece by piece in the opening credits? Good stuff.

Pink Panther: The cartoon character from the credits sequence even got his own show.

And I have to agree that the way the title in Alien builds up is just ingenious. I think Ridley Scott explains in the audio commentary that they hired a special company to come up with that idea.

Agree with Serenity. Great start to a great movie.

I would also say the original Terminator had great credits.

Others:

Gettysburg
The Big Lebowski
Lost Highway
Rent

I agree, I loved the Watchmen one.

I love Firefly and like Serenity, but I didn't love that credits sequence. It's nice to see more of the ship, but the whole credits over actual scenes from a movie always feels so TV to me. The only reason to do that is to squeeze the credits into 42 minutes. Just looks cheap to me. Would've been a great sequence without the credits there.

Good addition. City Slickers had another good stand-alone credit sequence that works well outside of the rest of the movie.

Superman. The credit sequence is worth the price of admission by itself.

I'd have to say that the credit sequence of Citizen Kane is masterful

0 secs :RKO mast flashes

15 secs: "A Mercury production ...by Orson Welles"

23 secs - Single dramatic black and white title card

--- CITIZEN KANE ----

30 secs : Fade to black

35 secs : Arguably the best opening sequence in cinema history

154 secs - The utterance

192 secs - "News on the March"

Rob

I just remembered that Holy Grail has the funniest opening credits of all time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I2qWq9L6rw

Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër ?

Off the top of my head:

Fight Club
Panic Room
Napoleon Dynamite
Almost Famous
Lord of War

Hilarious! I haven't seen the movie, and thus the credits, since the early 1990s.

David Fincher seems to have a knack for creating interesting credit sequences.
The Se7en sequence was groundbreaking in its grittiness and was copied by nearly every serial killer movie for the following decade.
Panic Room launched the trend of credits that exist as realistic 3D structures in a cityscape (now used in every episode of Fringe).

If I hadn't known a movie was going to follow I would have sworn Se7en's credit sequence was a music video for one of NIN's remixes.

Wait a minute! Those aren't opening credits at all, it's just an opening shot with a title-only credit. Try again Rob

Yes, but at 35 seconds in, it apparently proclaims that it has the best opening sequence in cinema history. Who are we to argue with Orson Welles?