10 Favorite Opening Scenes/Sequences

For my first post on Movie Opinions, it seemed fitting to celebrate the opening scenes in movies. Below is a list of my 10 favorite opening scenes/sequences. A few things worth noting before we start:

-I note scenes and sequences because, by the letter of the law, a scene might change when the location changes. As far as this list goes, if it is the same people, having the same conversation they were having, or performing the same actions, it’s fine if the setting changes slightly.

-It has to be the first thing on in the movie, not including the opening credits, if those are on first. This unfortunately excludes the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan.

-The title of the post says “favorite opening scenes”, not “best opening scenes”. I’m no movie critic, and I probably don’t have the greatest technical understanding of movies and narrative structure. This is a subjective list, though I’ll have a blurb with each selection that hopefully provides objectively good reasoning.

-Assuming I can find the scenes that I’m referencing online, I will link to them in the movie’s title.

-There will be spoilers, so please don’t read a movie summary if you do not want to know the outcome of the movie.

To the list!

10. The Godfather

I think The Godfather is the best move of all-time. That isn’t to say it is my absolute top-of-the-list favorite movie, but I believe it to be the best movie. The opening scene is an iconic beginning. The opening line “I believe in America”, in many ways, sums up what Vito Corleone stands for – something we actually see more of in Part II.

However, I think the main reason this opening is always enjoyable, and revered historically, is because it is the introduction to arguably the most iconic movie character of all-time, Don Vito Corleone.

The scene starts with a different character speaking, appealing to the Don for help. Slowly, but surely, the camera fades out and we see the back of the man sitting and listening in a dark, shadowy room. At 2:30, he speaks for the first time, still with his back to the camera, and then finally, at 2:55 we see him.

Marlon Brando was an era-defining, game-changing actor, and his take on the Don was unlike many other mafia portrayals to that point. He is simultaneously a soft-spoken family man, and a calmly dangerous presence. Often imitated, and never equaled. I feel aware that I’m watching the best movie of all-time as soon as it starts.

9. Halloween

Halloween is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. A masterclass in the simplicity of both horror and tension. I think Michael Myers is the best horror movie villain, and one of the best movie villains period. The opening scene is a long POV tracking shot that puts you in the killer’s shoes, and it is a chance to process the world as he sees it. To some, it might be voyeuristic, to me, you get a feel for the character’s predatory nature.

The music and effects start when our mystery avatar enters the house, and they’re eerie without being overwhelming. The avatar grabs a knife, and slowly climbs the stairs, goes to the young woman’s room, and then suddenly stabs her repeatedly. We then calmly leave the room and walk down the stairs at the same slow pace that we entered. Eventually Michael’s parents come home, rip off his mask, and reveal the murderer to be a confused-looking child.

There’s your killer’s backstory. A kid just stabbed his sister. He was calm, he didn’t speak, and he moved slowly. No explanation.

This opening scene serves as a perfect character introduction to a horror movie icon, while at the same time establishing the pace of the movie, and giving us a taste of what is to come in the third act. I don’t remember the first time I saw this movie, but I find the POV tracking shot to be very enjoyable each time I re-watch it.

8. Rocky II / Rocky III / Rocky IV

There isn’t much explanation to this. I’m a big fan of the Rocky franchise. They get me fired up, they have heart, and they have underdog sports stories. The middle three movies all start with the franchise theme music, and the last round of the climactic fight from the previous movie. It JACKS ME UP! I don’t know if anything gets me as excited to watch a movie so quickly!

7. John Wick 2

This entry is for the whole opening sequence from the very beginning of the movie, to Wick’s recovery of his vehicle. Unfortunately, I cannot find good links to the whole scene.

If you haven’t seen the John Wick franchise, it is one of my favorites. One awesome aspect is that the three movies take place over a short period of time, around a week, in terms of the movie’s timeline. This opening scene of Wick 2 is basically right after the last events of the first Wick.

Wick has just killed a bulk of the Russian mob in New York City after they stole his car and killed his dog. The opening of the sequel is his recovery of his beloved ’69 Mustang. It just gets right into it.

There are well-choreographed fight scenes along with some exposition that reiterate the John Wick mythology in ways that are both self-referential and badass. It reminds everyone of the action that sets this franchise apart from other genre movies, as well as the character details that make “Baba Yaga” the most enjoyable savage in recent memory.

6. Pulp Fiction

This Tarantino entry is all about dialogue. The plot is non-linear, so we’re not really getting the beginning of the story, or really even an intro to an amazing character. It’s just two people talking at a diner, like any of us. Of course, these two are talking about robbing said diner, and ultimately that’s where the scene ends.

Tarantino is one of the best dialogue writers ever, and this was the first movie of his that I saw. Technically, Reservoir Dogs came out first, but I saw it later. Pulp Fiction was the first time I remember people in the movies having conversations that sounded like real conversations that people could have. Up until that point, for me at least, people in the movies were dramatized, and all of them seemed to be either wise or witty, saying the perfect thing. Ringo and Yolanda just seemed like two people. It’s an awesome microcosm of the way characters speak in the movie and it also just seems ballsy to show people beginning a robbery and then to not show the robbery, until much later.

5. Gladiator (part 1 of the opening; part 2)

This is the opening battle scene from Gladiator. Battle scenes are always interesting and tricky because there is a lot going on. They have to focus on the key characters, but also maintain a wide enough scope so that we get a feel for how the war is going. This battle is well planned out, showing us chaos and the violence, with enough focus on the big picture, the advance of the Roman Empire. Also, a great Hans Zimmer musical score.

Perhaps most importantly though, this scene introduces us to Maximus, the most badass person 13 year-old me had ever seen. We get to see his charisma and leadership in the early part. You completely buy that the soldiers take orders from him. Then finally, in battle, we see he is a general who fights on the front line with his men, and he can brawl.

4. Goodfellas

The opening scene of Goodfellas features a decently common device of showing the plot/characters at an intriguing point in time, and then, once they have the audience’s interest, they go back to the beginning to show how they arrived at that point. Fight Club and The Hangover are a couple of additional movies that utilize this. Scorsese also did this in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s very effective.

I think Goodfellas takes it a step further by showing some action to add to the intrigue. The Hangover just has Bradley Cooper making a phone call letting the audience know they’re in a bad spot or Fight Club has the narrator with a gun in his mouth, so you’re left wondering “how’d they get into this bad spot?” Whereas in Goodfellas, the guys pull over, and not only are we surprised to find a bloody body in their trunk, but they finish the murder they had started with several stabs and gunshots. You’re left there like “what the H?” Then it wraps up with one of the best lines ever, “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” This sets up the trip back to Henry Hill’s childhood.

3. Inglourious Basterds

Really unfortunate that I couldn’t find the whole scene front to back. The opening scene from Inglourious Basterds may be the GOAT when we look back in 50 years. I have a feeling that over time it’ll make its way up to #1 on my list, as the movie ages really well.

This introduction does a great job of giving us a new element to a setting that many of us have read about, and likely have our own preconceived notions about. World War II, the Nazis in particular, have been the subject of many books, shows, and movies. When we think about Nazi portrayals they’re always evil, often stoic, and sometimes menacing. Enter SS Colonel Hans Landa.

Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa is an all-time great movie villain. He has an evil, menacing nature that is in line with what we associate with Nazis, but it is often covered up by a loquacious, even somewhat goofy persona. This subverts our expectation of who the character is, and within the context of the movie, probably does so for the farmer and other unsuspecting characters in his way. We see he is meticulous, very smart, and committed to the cause.

About halfway through, we see that the farmer is sheltering a family of Jews under his house. Now it becomes an exercise in tension. To use the old Hitchcock metaphor, we see the bomb under the table. Will it explode? When?

At one point, he asks the farmer if he can switch from speaking French to English, which garnered laughs in the movie theater, as we all thought it was just Tarantino being cute. It turns out it had a functional purpose – if the farmer was hiding any Jews who didn’t speak English, they wouldn’t know what he was saying.

Tarantino subverts our expectations by introducing a truly unique character in a situation that is grounded in historical realism, which helps us understand the stakes, and never totally feel good while Landa is being nice. Add to that the “Hitchcockian” suspense that results from the reveal of the family and we have one of the best opening scenes ever.

2. Scream

This entry is the most subjective on this list. The opening scene of Scream is the only movie scene I’ve seen that truly scared me. It was a perfect confluence of events: I was in 4th grade, and my mom just started letting me stay home from school for 30 minutes or so at a time, like if she had to run an errand. I grew up in a small, woodsy town. There weren’t cell phones back then and there wasn’t caller ID, so there were plenty of instances when I was home alone and the phone rang. Additionally, unlike other villains/monsters that I’d seen to that point, Ghostface came to your house!

The opening scene starts off innocently enough with a stranger calling Drew Barrymore, and then getting progressively more aggressive. The stranger toys with her, then kills her boyfriend, and ultimately her. The scene just makes you feel unsafe. You’re vulnerable, even in your own home, the police are too far away to help you, and literally anyone could call you up and be on your property.

Also, as an aside, Drew Barrymore was the most famous person in the movie. She is prominently featured on the poster. In what I believe is an homage to Psycho, Craven kills her off in the opening scene, which adds an additionally unsettling undertone.

The other thing that is interesting about this scene is that, like the rest of the movie, it is very meta, a borderline satire of slasher movies. Barrymore and the killer talk about scary movies in this scene, and they’re referenced throughout the movie. A movie this self-aware might have trouble still being scary due to the constant reminder for the audience that they’re watching a horror movie. This opening scene establishes the stakes and has a realistic murder that hits close to home, causing us to take the rest of the movie seriously.

1. Dark Knight

This was one of the most heavily anticipated movies that I can remember. I saw it at a midnight showing on the night it opened. Everyone was excited. It was going to be hard to meet expectations, let alone surpass them. Like some of the other entries on this list, the opening scene in The Dark Knight sucks you in with action, precision, and a twist on expectations.

The opening scene is a bank heist, said to be heavily influenced by the opening scene in the movie Heat. In that way, it is very tight, intense, and precise. There are guys zip-lining across buildings in Gotham City, we learn quickly that they’re part of the bank heist. The twist on expectations comes when the robbers start killing members of their own crew after they complete their task. For example, the alarm guy gets killed after disabling the alarm, the safe cracker gets killed after opening the safe, and so on. I had never seen anything like it. It was chaotic and unpredictable in a unique way.

Finally, there is the introduction to The Joker. Much of the anticipation for this movie was surrounding the arch villain. The trailer had a rougher portrayal of The Joker than we were used to seeing. Similarly, Heath Ledger was not an actor typically associated with dark roles, and of course he ended up passing away prior to the release, driving up the intrigue. We don’t see The Joker right away, but he is being referenced by all of the robbers in the crew, that is, the four robbers who are talking. They exchange rumors about him, and most notably, one of the thieves expresses disapproval that The Joker won’t be participating in the heist, but will take a cut of the money. Ultimately, it is revealed that the fifth robber, the one who hadn’t talked, is The Joker. An awesome twist that perfectly adds to the chaos of the heist.

As noted above, it’s hard for a big comic book movie to meet expectations. I don’t suppose it has to start with action, but that seems like a good way to wet the appetite of an excited fan base. This scene delivers, and then some.

Honorable Mentions: The Social Network, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Tropic Thunder, Wedding Crashers, Austin Powers 2 & 3, Jaws, Casino Royale