Shōgun
Ink and weather. Landscapes, ships and figures resolve out of washes of black and grey as though the frame is being painted while you watch, then dissolve before any of it settles.
Shōgun opens with a main title sequence of 99 seconds.
At 99 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on FX in 2024, when Feud, What We Do in the Shadows and American Sports Story were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
99sThe first season's sequence, built around imagery that forms and disperses rather than cutting.
More drama opening titles from the 2020s
2 sequences
Bridgerton
Engraved invitations, wax seals and bees, assembled like a society page being typeset — the gossip sheet that drives the plot, doing the credits.
- Season 1
- Season 2
1 sequence
Landman
West Texas oil patch, filmed with the same proprietorial eye Yellowstone brings to Montana.
- Season 1
3 sequences
House of the Dragon
The parent show mapped a continent; this one traces a bloodline. Where Game of Thrones built cities, these titles follow blood running through stone channels and a tapestry recording who killed whom.
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Season 3
1 sequence
Slow Horses
London surveillance imagery over a theme Mick Jagger wrote for the show — a spy series whose titles are as shabby and unglamorous as its office.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Beef
A different David Choe painting behind the title card of every episode, so the opening is a gallery hung one canvas at a time across the season.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Industry
Twenty-two seconds of type and glass. A trading-floor show whose opening is over before you have settled, which is roughly how the job is depicted.
- Season 1