The White Lotus
Colonial wallpaper that will not behave — painted paradise curdling into something predatory while the resort's guests are nowhere in it. Rebuilt from scratch for each new location, with a new theme every time.
The White Lotus rebuilt its titles: three distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1–3, running between 91 and 115 seconds.
At 115 seconds at its longest, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on HBO in 2021, when Curb Your Enthusiasm, In Treatment and The Jinx were also on the network.
Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; The White Lotus did so two times.
All 3 opening title sequences
Season 1
91sHawaii. Tropical wallpaper turning rotten as the camera holds on it, over Cristobal Tapia de Veer's first theme.
Season 2
104sSicily. The wallpaper becomes Renaissance fresco and classical statuary, and the theme is rebuilt around opera — the same idea relocated rather than repeated.
Season 3
115sThailand. Temple murals and animals replace the frescoes, and the theme drops the vocal hook the first two seasons were known for — a change enough of the audience objected to that it became its own story.
More drama opening titles from the 2020s
2 sequencesBridgerton
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 sequenceLandman
West Texas oil patch, filmed with the same proprietorial eye Yellowstone brings to Montana.
- Season 1
3 sequencesHouse 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 sequenceSlow 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 sequenceBeef
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 sequenceIndustry
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
