TV Guide readers ranked Mad Men’s opening credits No. 9 on a 2010 list of television’s top 10 credit sequences.
The sequence shows a silhouetted businessman falling past skyscrapers covered with reflections of advertising posters and billboards. It became one of television’s most recognizable openings, immediately establishing the show’s themes of ambition, anxiety, image-making, and professional collapse.
The titles were created by the production company Imaginary Forces. Their design deliberately echoes the work of Saul Bass, especially the skyscraper-filled titles for Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and the falling figure associated with Vertigo. The music is a shortened version of “A Beautiful Mine,” an instrumental track by RJD2.
The ranking is sometimes misremembered as a critics’ choice or as a ranking of the entire series. It was specifically a readers’ list published in TV Guide in 2010, and it evaluated opening credit sequences rather than the show’s overall quality or popularity.