Wiktionary
n. The credits shown at the beginning of a film or TV program.
Wikipedia
In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. When opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is title sequence (such as the familiar James Bond and Pink Panther title sequences).
Opening credits since the early 1980s, if present at all, identify the major actors and crew, while the closing credits list an extensive cast and production crew. Historically, however, opening credits have been the only source of crew credits and, largely, the cast, although over time the tendency to repeat the cast, and perhaps add a few players, with their roles identified (as was not always the case in the opening credits), evolved. The ascendancy of television movies after 1964 and the increasingly short "shelf-life" of films in theaters has largely contributed to the credits convention which came with television programs from the beginning, of holding the vast majority of cast and crew information for display at the end of the show.
In movies and television, the title and opening credits may be preceded by a " cold open," or teaser (in other words, a brief scene prior to the main acts), that helps to set the stage for the episode or film.
Usage examples of "opening credits".
I tried to watch the in-flight movie, but I lost the plot line during the opening credits.
I felt the opening credits roll and then the pad went morphic and my last thought was.
Cut back to the high school picture, as the opening credits rolled.
Rune tossed the pizza on the table and moved closer to Healy, resting her head against his chest, as the opening credits ended and Nicole's picture faded into the grimy, cold-lit marquee of a movie theater on Eighth Avenue.
I explained the problem to the Paramount executives, and they agreedso, to this day, long after the mystery has been solved, my name doesn't appear in the film's opening credits (except as director).
Now, though, the Sony had erupted into snow, and I was going to miss the opening credits.
The opening credits flashed the names of the actors: Hootie Grate, Dillie Dare -- the new generation of rising stars.
He was able to recognise which of the girls she was because it was her face that adorned the card atop the TV set, advertising details of the available features, but on-screen she was listed well down the opening credits, and not by her own name, either.
I don't know whether it was the meal, the wine, the comfort of Micah's arms wrapped around me, or a combination of all three, but I was asleep practically before the opening credits finished rolling.
Now the click of heels on marble gave way to orchestrated music, and the opening credits and title came up.
Is that the animal that walks across the opening credits of Northern Exposure!
Like kids asking what a holo-movie was about even as the opening credits were rolling, they looked for some advance clue as to the nature of their new assignment in their leaders' expressions, but those notables kept their faces locked in rigid neutrality.
Like kids asking what a holo-movie was about even as the opening credits were rolling, they looked for some advance clue as to the nature of their new assignment in their leaders’.
The computer graphics for the opening credits were at least as smooth and at least as fancy as anything the Lizards used.