Opening scenes. They can be tricky. You wanna do something that hooks people right in, but you don't wanna blow your load too early. Theres many different ways to hook people with an opening. From big action scenes, to heartbreaking losses or montages to build up the world. So me, Mike Natale and Josh Paige wanted to compile lists of the best opening scenes. And since I had a lot of free time during the compilation of this list, I couldn't stop at ten. So here's 20. And just to reiterate, these are our lists of personal preferences. They will be overlaps, but entries unique to our lists that show how our tastes differ. Click on their names to go to their pages. But for now, sit back and give this list a whirl. I enjoyed making it, I hope you guys enjoy reading it.
20. Narc
Director: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Jason Patric and Ray Liotta
Joe Carnahan was out to make a movie that was completely drenched in a gritty, grim atmosphere that was an morally gray canvas. And what better way to convey that than by starting the movie off with Jason Patric chasing down a perp, who is stabbing people to slow Patric down. And when Patric catches up, the perp grabs a little girl as a shield. But there is no hesitation. He open fire and takes the perp down. Only, someone else goes down too. The little girls mother, who gets gut shot. To make matters even worse? She's pregnant. Welcome to Narc, where things only get worse from here.
19. The Road Warrior
Director: George Miller
Starring: Mel Gibson
The opening to this movie sets the tone for the rest of the running time. By setting up the world and flashing back to the events of the first movie, we know the stakes. But it also does something else. In this movie, Max is the mysterious gunslinger who wanders into town. We as an audience know him, but no one else does. So by the end of the movie, he is the mythic figure that the narrator calls him. We are being told an old campfire tale with the survivors of the apocalypse. A great opening to an even better film.
18. Dazed and Confused
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Jason London, Sasha Jensen, Rory Cochrane, and Matthew McConaughey
How do you open a movie like Dazed and Confused? It's a movie set during one day, the last day of the school year as we see the juniors prepare for their last year in school and the middle schoolers about to make the jump to high school. This isn't a cinematic movie with gun fights, explosions or insane camera angles. It's a simple day in the life story, a story Linklater has perfected. Well, the only way to start it is to start the day off, set to the tunes of Aerosmiths Sweet Emotion. We see all the kids heading to the last day and see the various groups. The first, realistic glimpse into the life of a high school filled with realistic touches.
17. The Devils Rejects
Director: Rob Zombie
Starring: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sherri Moon Zombie, and William Forsythe
A completely insane movie that follows a family of redneck serial killers on the lam, this is not an easy film to lure people into. But Zombie is firing on all cylinders, so he manages to do it. We look through the house of the Firefly family, all asleep. The place is disgusting, a real shit hole straight out of a deep south nightmare. And that's before we get to the corpses laying around or the one that Otis is sleeping with. And the peaceful depravity is disturbed when a platoon of cops arrive, led by vengeful Forsythe. Then, it's a shootout between the two sides with the Fireflys showing their smarts at escaping. And from here on out, we get a taste for what's at hand. Nasty, smart serial killers with no regard for like being hunted down by a vicious Cop with a mean streak in him.
16. Inglourious Basterds
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, and Christoph Waltz
Quentin has always been great at opening scenes. The only one that didn't have a good one was Death Proof, and that movie was very flawed from the word go (anything without Kurt Russell). But none of them have managed to be as funny and tense as the opening to this movie. Here, he sets up the Tarantino version of WWII while setting up the heroine (the less interesting than the Basterds Shoshanna Dreyfuss) but more importantly, the formidable foe Hans Landa (Waltz). A completely charming, smart and amoral Nazi, Landa is the best character that Quentin has unleashed so far in a career of amazing characters. But seeing him essentially play with the poor French farmer for information on a Jewish family, this scene is just dripping with tension. And it is here that we are thrust into the movie that plays with the same kind of tension throughout.
15. 28 Weeks Later
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, and Imogen Poots
The beginning to the (in my opinion) best of the 28 Later series, is in and of itself a brilliantly tense and brutal short movie. In a holed up cabin in the still zombie ravaged Britain, we see as Carlyle and his wife have holed up with a group of other survivors. We see the way they have adapted to the awful new conditions they have to live in, keeping care to not attract any unwanted attention to the rage infected assholes outside. But when trouble comes a knocking, it blows up there semi comfortable life for good. Being a zombie movie, lives are lost in gruesome fashion and there is heartbreak. We see terrible choices made and the guilt from the acts. While the movie only reaches the heights of this scene once (the outbreak scene a little later), it sets the stage for the horror to be unleashed later by expanding the scope from 28 Days Later and going bigger from there.
14. Man Of Steel
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, and Russell Crowe
Man of Steel needed to set itself apart from the Superman movies of the past, and right out the gate it does that. While Superman: The Movie began on Krypton, it couldn't have been further than we got here. We see Kal El born, as Jor El (a brilliant Crowe) looks on in fatherly pride. Then we see him debate with politicians about Kryptons imminent destruction when General Zod shows up. We see that a military coup has broken out and Jor El has to brave his way to his sons side so he can save him by sending him to Earth. A mini movie in and of itself that shows more heart, action and emotion than the entirety of Avatar, this is where Snyder and co lay out the movie for us. We are going to get a giant, Sci Fi epic about ones place in the world as told through the prism of Superman. One of the best openings to a comic book movie, and a Sci Fi movie.
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13. Casino Royale
Director: Martin Campbell
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, and Judi Dench
After Die Another Day, Bond needed another fresh start. By bringing back Martin Campbell (who did that job once with Goldeneye) was more than up to task, as evidenced by this brilliant and explosive beginning. We see Bond interrogate an MI6 traitor, while cutting back and forth between that and a fight in a bathroom with the traitors contact. Filmed in stark black and white, it signaled the complete do over that Bond needed. I'm gonna cheat and say the opening continues into the next scene, a chase scene through Morocco that is a classic action scene that once again shows the changes to Bond. Bond is young and learning how to become the Bond we know and love. The movie ends with that moment. And while Quantum of Solace fucked that up, Skyfall came in and said "hey forget Solace, I'm the real sequel that has Bond be Bond like the ending said he became".
12. Manhattan
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, and Michael Murphy
Woody Allen is New York. Or I should say, he is a certain part of New York that is completely different from Scorseses New York. But any geographical differences from hailing the Upper West Side or Little Italy don't matter with this opening scene. With a narration by Woody about his love for the city, we are treated to images of the city in Black and White while George Gershwins Rhapsody In Blue plays. Really, it's just a NY thing. Watch it and let the best damn city wash over over you. It's certainly better than letting Taxi Driver wash over ya.
11. Children Of Men
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, and Chiwetel Ejiofor
The opening to this dystopian future where women can't conceive anymore starts out, as any good opening should do, with initiating us into this world. We are in a coffee house as we watch a group of people looking at the tv. The news is telling them that the youngest person in the world has died. Sadness is painted on everyones face. So immediately, we know the world isn't ours and that things are not very good in this world. But we follow Clive Owen as he leaves the shop, stop to adjust his coffee when the coffee shop blows up. This is all in one take. The world has been teased and done so in virtuoso fashion. The ride begins here, and it's something else.
10. Once Upon A Time In The West
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale, and Henry Fonda
Sergio Leone is a master. Simply put, he is in a league of his own, still being copied today. And the opening to this movie is one of his finest moments. It is a prolonged opening, taking it's sweet ass time to get to the point. We just follow three men, obviously bad dudes, as they wait around a train station. That's it. It's about ten minutes long as they wait around for a train. The tension is palpable, swarming off the screen. Then the train comes, and who steps off but Charlie Bronson. And then everything snaps into place. They are awaiting this movies mysterious gunslinger. It's three on one though. This can't be fair can it? Just check in on this masterpiece and find out for yourself.
9. The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the beginning of The Dark Knight made it on this list. Not only is it the opening to the best comic book based movie ever, but it also features the best bank heist put on film. A recurring format that Nolan has been using since this movie, the beginning of this movie acts as a prologue. We follow a crew that is about to knock over a bank in completely well oiled fashion, on the orders of the Joker. Everything is going smoothly until they don't. The crew starts knocking each other off thanks to Jokers orders. The bank manager starts shooting at them with a shotgun. But everything calms down until the last two guys are standing. Then one of them pulls a gun on the other and things seem to go one way, but they go another. A creepy voice emanates from the mask of the one with a gun aimed at him. A bus plows through the bank and kills the armed clown. The driver and the last man standing load the money in the bus and the driver gets shot. The bank manager starts talking shit. So the remaining thug walks over to him, puts a grenade in his mouth and the mask comes off. We finally meet the clown prince of crime, The Joker himself. This isn't your grand daddys Joker. He is nasty, grimy, unbelievably ingenius and more than willing to get his hands dirty for the hell of it. In less than 10 minutes, we are introduced to the villain of villains thats about to take on the Dark Knight for Gothams soul. And what we see here, it's not going to be an easy ride.
8. Goodfellas
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci
This is probably the shortest segment on the entire list. It's a quick little scene that completely envelops you into the world you are about to enter. The three main guys are driving in a car when they hear a noise coming from the car. Liotta thinks he hit something. He wakes up DeNiro and Pesci to ask them what it could be. Then something dawns on them. They pull over and go to the trunk. Slowly, Liotta opens up the trunk. Inside? A bleeding, mortally wounded man trying as hard but as meekly as he can to call for help. Pesci stabs him a handful of times, then DeNiro blasts him with a revolver. Liotta takes it in, then closes the trunk. "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster" is voiced over the trunk closing. Welcome to the world of the mafia, a bunch of guys who don't even think twice about murder and think of it as easy and matter of factly as throwing out the garbage. The descent into the awful world these men live in only grows worse, as we see it through their eyes from the highs and lows.
7. Touch of Evil
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Orson Welles
Orson Welles is the granddaddy of tracking shots, starting right here. Tracking shots may have been done before, but none as flashy and as memorable as this. Someone plants a bomb in a car in Mexico, then we follow it as it drives through the border town as it heads for the border. Then we move over to Heston and Leigh as they walk around town, our introduction to them. Then the car blows and the story begins. Like all of the great tracking shots, it's well made but it also serves a purpose. It's building tension with the bomb in the trunk, while it introduces Heston, also just showing how everything is interconnected in the town. It's a brilliant scene, and another way of Wells just changing the game.
6. Watchmen
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Malin Ackerman, Billy Crudup, and Jackie Earle Haley
Snyders adaptation of Watchmen was met with skepticism when it was announced, and hasn't had the greatest of reputations since its release. But a general consensus can be reached that the beginning of the movie is perfect. Starting with a fight between the Comedian and an unknown (to the uninitiated) assailant, this is a fight that we had in our imaginations for decades. It was happening. But if it was just that, the opening would be just good. No, Snyder decided to make a sequence that would be transcendent. Set to The Times They Are-A Changing by Bob Dylan, we are treated to a 5 minute opening credits sequence that works as a montage to build the world. We see the earlier vigilantes as they start up, the formation of the first hero group, then the fall of the group. From death and personal demons, we see the original group fall apart. The Comedian is not the hero we though, as he is revealed to have killed JFK. Sally Jupiter can save the day outside, but in her home/with personal relationships she is lost at sea. The world is growing bleaker. But then we see a new group rise. Rorshach, Dr Manhattan, Ozymandias, a new Nite Owl and Silk Specter arrive on the scene. Then a new group is formed, along with a member of the original group, The Comedian. Maybe things are getting better? A group of protestors picketing the Watchmen and a man tossing a molotov tell us that, no. Things have only gotten worse. Just a brilliant opening that sets up roughly 40 years of history, while setting up what's to come.
5. Halloween
Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes, PJ Soles, and Donald Pleasance
The moment that John Carpenter changed cinema history started right here. For one, it kicked started (in full) a career that was going to hit a streak for 15 years that is for the ages. Secondly, he would shape the entire Horror genre in 91 minutes. To this day, you can't escape knockoffs and wannabes of this movie. Every horror movie is trying to be this. All the rules of horror films talked about in Scream, pretty much got there start here. And it all starts with this opening scene that announces it is something new and a force to be reckoned with is about to be unleashed. A POV shot with the appearance of an unbroken take, we watch as this unknown person stalks a young girl from outside her home into her bedroom. When he is about to attack, she screams his name Michael. So we can assume they know each other in some way. He kills her and walks downstairs and outside. It's really that simple. Like the movie itself, it's very simple. But Carpenter is directing like his life depends on it and the scene is dripping in tension. We don't know what the hell is happening until it happens, and it takes it's time getting to the point. But the real capper is when the killer goes outside, the camera changes from a POV to medium shot. The killer was a little boy. His parents come home and we realize something horrible. This little boy has snapped and killed his sister, all with a dead eyed stare in his head. A monster has been unleashed in this child. And as we learn, he can't be stopped when he doesn't want to be. History is made with a virtuoso scene.
4. Reservoir Dogs
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen
Another opening that announces the arrival of a game changer. The opening of this scene is pure Tarantino. Opening up with a group of crooks sitting around a diner table, one of them saying Madonnas Like A Virgin is about big dicks. It's all here. A bunch of well spoken thugs talking about nonsense and pop culture without a modicum of a plot given. But there is one thing that elevates this above being good to listen to. It builds up who the important guys are. Buscemi is a little fucking weasel who won't tip waitresses because fuck them. Roth is a follower and a little snitch. Chris Penn is a doofus daddys boy. Lawrence Tierney is a no nonsense old timer. Keitel is a man of honor and respect, while Madsen is a mercenary who enjoys violence. It is a scene that shouldn't really work, because it's just talking about nonsense. But it does. You watch this scene and it hooks you for the whole ride. Hell, the ride could mean just the movie or Tarantinos entire career.
3. Up
Directors: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
Starring: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, and Christopher Plummer
This may very well be Pixars crowning achievement. The movie itself could be argued as such, but there is no arguing that the opening to this movie is brilliant and iconic in the land of animation. Much like Watchmen from earlier, it has an opening scene and montage. The opening scene introduces us to two young kids, Carl and Ellie. We see a friendship form. Then the montage starts and we see them grow from friends to lovers, as they start a life together. And like life, it hits highs and lows. This montage is just brutal in its look at life and loss. No big gestures, no action. Hell, there's no dialogue to tell us what to feel. It's all visual and the movie kicks you right in the gut.
2. Saving Private Ryan
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Ed Burns, and Matt Damon
In a career of iconic moments and action packed spectacle, Spielberg bested everything he did in the past and set a bar that hasn't been cleared since with the opening of this movie. This isn't even in question. When you make a WWII battle scene, and veterans of said war get flashbacks to the war because it's so visceral, you did something right (also kinda fucked up in a way). But it is simple. We see an old man, a WWII vet in a cemetery. He is with his family. He goes to a grave and falls to his knees. Then we flashback to a U Boat in the war, ready to storm Normandy Beach. The power in this lies in the brutality and the destruction on display. Men die with no problem at all. Death is easier than life on this battlefield. And we see the death in all its horrible ways. Limbs blow off, holes are shot into important parts, and bodies are set aflame. Screams and bombs overpower the audio in this scene. War has never been captured so grippingly, so realisticly, or so hauntingly. Spielbergs crowning achievement, the best war scene ever and arguably the best opening scene of all time. It's between this or the number 1 pick.
1. Scream
Director: Wes Craven
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and Skeet Ulrich
This could very well be a controversial pick. Not that it's on the list, but that it's the number 1 choice. I did debate between this and Saving Private Ryan. But this had to take the edge for me. For one, it is literally a short slasher film at the beginning of the movie. From the blonde victim, to the slashers MO, to the chase and eventual kill shot, this is everything a slasher movie does but executed perfectly and in a short amount of time. Secondly, it is the intro point to the meta genius slasher opus that Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven have crafted. This is every slasher movie with a twist, where the characters know the rules. It subverts and plays into them in genius effect, and it all builds here. Wes has changed horror films twice before this, with The Last House on The Left and A Nightmare On Elm Street. But neither had the power that this movie had. This movie killed the horror genre for a good long time. Some could even argue the genre is still on it's death bed. And it all boils down to the best opening to a movie ever, in my opinion.
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- Tom Lorenzo
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