Billing is a performing arts term used in referring to the order and other aspects of how credits are presented for plays, films, television, or other creative works. Information given in billing usually consists of the companies, actors, directors, producers, and other crew members.

From the beginning of motion pictures in the 1900s to the early 1920s, the moguls that owned or managed big film studios did not want to bill the actors appearing in their films because they did not want to recreate the star system that was prevalent on Broadway at that time.^{[citation needed]} They also feared that, once actors were billed on film, they would be more popular and would seek large salaries. Actors themselves did not want to reveal their film careers to their stage counterparts via billing on film, because at that time working in the movies was unacceptable to stage actors.^{[citation needed]} As late as the 1910s, stars as famous as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin were not known by name to moviegoers. According to Mary Pickford's biography Doug and Mary, she was referred to by the public as "the Biograph girl" in all of her films before 1905.

Before Mary Pickford, the public used to call Florence Lawrence the "Biograph girl". In 1910, Lawrence was lured away from Biograph by Carl Laemmle when he started the Independent Motion Picture Company (IMP). Laemmle wanted Lawrence to be his star attraction, so he offered her more money (US$250 per week (equivalent to $8,437 in 2024)) and marquee billing, something Biograph did not allow. She signed on; with the release of her first IMP film, The Broken Oath (1910), she became the first film star to receive billing on the credits of her film.^{[citation needed]} From then on, actors received billing on film. Also originating during that time was the system of billing above and below the title, to delineate the status of the players. Big stars such as Pickford, Fairbanks, and Chaplin were billed above the title, while lesser stars and supporting players were billed below the title.^{[citation needed]}

During the era of the studio system, on-screen billing was presented at the beginning of a film; only a restatement of the cast and possibly additional players appeared at the end, because the studios had actors under contract and could decide billing. The studios still followed the billing system of the silent era.^{[citation needed]}

After the studio system's collapse in the 1950s, actors and their agents fought for billing on a film-by-film basis. This, combined with changes in union contracts and copyright laws, led to more actors and crew members being included in the credits sequence, expanding its size significantly. As a result, since the late 1960s,^{[citation needed]} a significant amount of the billing is reserved for the closing credits of the film, which generally includes a recap of the billing shown at the beginning. In addition, more stars began to demand top billing.^{[citation needed]}

Billing demands even extended to publicity materials, down to the height of the letters and the position of names.^{[citation needed]}

By the 1990s, some films had moved all billing to the film's end, with the exception of company logos and the title. Although popularised by the Star Wars series (see below) and used sporadically in films such as The Godfather (1972) and Ghostbusters (1984), this "title-only" billing became an established form for summer blockbusters in 1989, with Ghostbusters II (1989), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), and The Abyss (1989) following the practice. Occasionally, even the title is left to the end, such as in The Passion of the Christ (2004), Avatar (2009), Inception (2010), and the Dark Knight trilogy.^{[citation needed]}

The order in which credits are billed generally signify their importance. While there are numerous variations, most opening credits use some variation of the following basic order. In the absence of opening credits, these roles will often be credited in reverse order at the beginning of the closing credits.