Saul Bass (1920-1996) was the inventor and master of modern movie title designs.
Using bold shapes, repeating patterns, and simple animation played against a jazz soundtrack, his sequences were instantly recognizable, and had the magical quality of getting the audience excited to see the movie, whether it was Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, Hitchcock's North by Northwest, Wise and Robbin's West Side Story, Kubrick's Spartacus, or Scorcese's Goodfellas.
Bass's title influenced other title designs, as well as the designs of book covers, print ads, WordPress themes, and other media.
Open Culture has a nice intro to Bass' titles, with links to his famous and lesser-known titles.
