The order of names in a film’s opening titles is not a ranking of talent: it is a contract, negotiated line by line, that a title designer then has to turn into something watchable. Most of what you see in the movie billing order, from the star alone before the title to the veteran listed last after ‘and,’ follows a small set of conventions and guild rules that are easy to read once you know them.
The short version: Top billing means being first, usually on a card of your own before the title. Two stars who both demand it can share a card in a diagonal layout that dates back at least to The Towering Inferno in 1974. The director’s card comes last before the film begins because the Directors Guild requires it, and the Writers Guild gives the humble ampersand a precise legal meaning.
How movie billing order is decided
Credits are a negotiated term, often a fiercely contested one. Entertainment attorney Daniel McDill told the design podcast 99% Invisible, in its episode on top billing: “I would describe film credits as potentially the most hotly negotiated term in a performers contract.” He described agents and lawyers bargaining over tiny details: they “will negotiate three-second, type eight font credit for weeks, trying to get the performer the best position possible.”
Those deals end up in a document the title designer receives before any design work starts. Title designer Karin Fong described it on the same episode: “When we get a title sequence project, there is a legal document or there’s a credit list that has all the specs of the credits.” The episode’s producer, Jacob Reed, himself a director who designs titles, gave a sense of how those specs collide: “One actor’s contract might say same size and type as other leads. But then the lead actor’s contract says no less than the size of the director’s title.”
The baseline order follows a simple logic. As the episode put it, “the hierarchy is usually dictated by the size of the role and the name recognition of the actor,” with major characters in the opening titles and the rest of the cast in the end crawl. Our guide to reading a film’s production credits covers the company and producer names that come before all of this.
Top billing and the card before the title
McDill’s definition is the clearest one available: “Top billing is the best credit–usually before title. So, if you’re on your own card–that means you’re by yourself before the title–and you’re number one, you have, most of the time, the best position possible.” In the trade, he added, that actor is the top billed star.
Size can be part of the deal too. Discussing The Fugitive, Art of the Title editor Lola Landekic pointed out that “Jones and Ford appear before the main title, which tells you that they both have top billing.” Their names match the size of the title, a common clause for action stars of that era; Landekic named Bruce Willis, Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan as stars whose contracts required that “their name has to appear 100% the size of the title of the film.” That creates its own puzzle, since, as the episode noted, “The Fugitive is 12 characters, Harrison Ford is 13, and Tommy Lee Jones is 15.” The designers solved it by subtly stretching the letters.
Sharing the top spot: The Towering Inferno and the diagonal card
When two stars each have a top-billing clause, only one name can literally be read first. The film industry’s answer is a card with one name at the bottom left and the other at the top right. Fong explained why it works: “One person’s lower, but the first’s read on the left. And one person is higher and is on the right side, which is the second position when you’re going left to right.”
In the business it carries the name of a sitcom. McDill said the industry calls it a “Laverne & Shirley,” after the ABC series that ran from 1976 to 1983 with Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. Producer Nick Abdo recalled a colleague proposing the fix when both actresses wanted top billing: “Well, why don’t we put the left bottom and the top right?”
The movies got there first. Reed found the layout in The Towering Inferno: “Bottom left is Steve McQueen. Top right is Paul Newman.” The AFI Catalog shows how far the parity went on that film. McQueen and Newman were each paid a million dollars plus a share of the gross, and “McQueen demanded the script be augmented so that he and Newman had the same number of lines.” Even the AFI’s cast listing starts with McQueen and then Newman, ahead of William Holden, Faye Dunaway and Fred Astaire. Landekic noted the same split card in recent work, including May December for Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman.
| Credit you see | What it usually signals |
|---|---|
| Name alone on a card before the title | Top billing: the top billed star |
| Two names on one card, one low left, one high right | Shared top billing (the Laverne & Shirley layout) |
| Introducing or featuring | A modifier that makes a name stand out in a long list |
| Last in the cast list, after and or with | An established name who is not the lead |
| Directed by, on its own card | DGA rule: the last card before the film proper |
| A Film by | Possessory credit, negotiated, limited on first features |
| Writer & Writer | A writing team that worked together |
| Writer and Writer | Separate writers, usually one rewriting the other |
The Outrageous Fortune experiment
The strangest billing story checked on the record belongs to Outrageous Fortune, the 1987 Touchstone comedy starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long. The long-circulating story says both were promised top billing and the studio split the country: “Bette Midler would take the West Coast and be the top billing, and Shelley Long would be the top billing on the East Coast,” as Atlanta video store owner Matt Booth summarized it.
99% Invisible tested it. Booth and former Turner Classic Movies programmer Millie De Chirico played two LaserDisc and VHS copies side by side. The cover art differed (“One of the LaserDiscs has Shelley Long’s name and Shelley Long’s body on the cover art on the left. And then the other one is flipped”), and so did the opening credits. On one copy Long’s name led; on the other, Midler’s. That confirms two versions of the credits exist on home video; the East Coast and West Coast split in theaters remains the story as told rather than something the test could prove.
And, with, introducing: the other prized positions
First is not the only good spot. McDill said that in a long list “any name that stands out can be valuable–the first, the last, and then any modifiers,” such as introducing or featuring. The last position, set off by ‘and’ or ‘with,’ has a specific use: “A lot of the times we reserve the "and" credit or "with" credit for a prominent, established, esteemed performer who’s not a star of the film.” His examples were a closing credit reading ‘and Robert De Niro’ or ‘with Dame Judi Dench.’
So a famous name at the end of the cast list is usually a sign of respect, not a demotion: the actor is in a supporting part, and the closing slot lets the credit stand out anyway. Some actors go further and take no credit at all, a choice explored in our piece on why actors take uncredited cameo roles.
Why the director’s credit comes last
Here a guild contract, not a negotiation, sets the order. Under Article 8 of the Directors Guild’s 2020 Basic Agreement, the director’s theatrical screen credit must be in type “not less than fifty percent (50%) of the size in which the title of the motion picture is displayed or of the largest size in which credit is accorded to any other person, whichever is greater.” It must stand alone (“No other credit shall appear on the card which accords credit to the Director of the film”) and “shall be on the last title card appearing prior to principal photography,” meaning the last card before the movie itself starts. Fong put it simply: “So, when you see a main title, the director’s name is always last.”
The DGA’s credits page adds two rules viewers notice. The only form it accepts for the director, on screen and in ads, is Directed by. And the A Film by line many directors use, the possessory credit, is restricted for newcomers: it “may not be accorded to a Director on his or her first feature film,” unless that director brought the underlying property to the company and did substantial development work on it. The guild also stresses that its rules are floors, and anyone covered may negotiate more.
Screenwriter credits: what the ampersand means
Writing credits look casual and are anything but. The Writers Guild of America’s Screen Credits Manual, in the edition effective for notices submitted after December 31, 2021, sets out what each form means. On the joining word, it is explicit. For a team, “writing credit to the team must be designated with an ampersand” between the members’ names. The word and between two names, by contrast, “indicates that the writers did their work separately, one usually rewriting the other.” The manual adds that this is “not subject to the writers’ preference.”
Other rules shape the list:
- Written by means the writer earned both the story and the screenplay credit.
- That credit “generally will not be shared by more than two writers,” with three names or three teams allowed only through arbitration.
- On an original screenplay, the first writer needs a contribution of “more than 33% to the final shooting script” for screenplay credit, and a later writer or team must contribute 50%.
- A team of more than three writers needs a waiver from the Guild.
For the crew credits that fill the end crawl, see our guide to who does what below the line.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does top billing mean in a movie?
Top billing is the first position in the credits, usually on a card of the actor’s own before the title appears. Entertainment attorney Daniel McDill told 99% Invisible that the industry calls that actor the top billed star.
Why are some famous actors listed last in the credits?
The last slot, introduced with and or with, is often reserved for a prominent, established performer who is not the lead. It makes the name stand out even though the role is a supporting one.
How did The Towering Inferno give Steve McQueen and Paul Newman equal billing?
Their names share a card in a diagonal layout: McQueen at bottom left, so he is read first left to right, and Newman at top right, so he is higher. The AFI Catalog adds that both were paid a million dollars plus a share of the gross.
Why is the director always the last credit before the movie starts?
The Directors Guild Basic Agreement requires the director’s credit to appear alone on the last title card before the film proper, in type at least half the size of the title or of the largest other credit.
What does an ampersand mean in screenwriting credits?
Under the WGA Screen Credits Manual, an ampersand joins writers who worked together as a team, while the word and means they worked separately, usually one rewriting the other.
Sources
- Top Billing (episode 592 transcript) — 99% Invisible, transcript accessed October 11, 2026
- The Towering Inferno (1974) — AFI Catalog of Feature Films, American Film Institute, accessed October 11, 2026
- Credits — Directors Guild of America, accessed October 11, 2026
- Basic Agreement of 2020, Article 8: Credits — Directors Guild of America, 2020 Basic Agreement
- Screen Credits Manual — Writers Guild of America West, effective for notices submitted after December 31, 2021