Costumes and art direction have their own Academy Awards. And movie posters get a lot of love from collectors and design nuts, too. But what about title cards, those unsung heroes of film aesthetics? They are, after all, among the first images we see in movies, and they can set the mood for entire three-hour epics. Thankfully, web designer Christian Annyas has collected hundreds of them in a truly impressive archive. We’ve assembled ten of our favorite cult-movie titles of the 20th century after the jump.
Fallen Angel , dir. Otto Preminger (1945)
The Lost Weekend , dir. Billy Wilder (1945)
In a Lonely Place, dir. Nicholas Ray (1950)
Orphée , dir. Jean Cocteau (1950)
The Night of the Hunter, dir. Charles Laughton (1955)
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, dir. Russ Meyer (1965)
Juliet of the Spirits, dir. Federico Fellini (1965)
The Conformist , dir. Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)
The Elephant Man , dir. David Lynch (1980)
Days of Being Wild, dir. Wong Kar-wai (1990)
[via io9]