Everyone should be familiar with the billing, “A Film by [Name of Director]”.

Touch Me’s riff on this norm challenges the suggestion of a movie’s primary authorship.

While “A Film by…” chalks the entire movie to the director, Touch Me’s closing-credits start with the customary text card that reads, “A Film by”…

But instead of listing the director’s name, it hard-cuts to the usual scroll, which includes everybody responsible for working on this new movie. 

As in, Touch Me is a film by every. single. person. in the crawl, the critical commentary of which seems clear:

Cinema is more collaborative than “A Film by…” conveys. 

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Project Hail Mary half-asses a similar idea. Its closing-credits begin with typical individual billing-cards, culminating in “A Film by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller”…

But then it quickly transitions to a big “AND”, which immediately leads into the full-crew scroll.