# Best opening scenes in movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810 "2015-06-29T20:19:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/1 "2015-06-29T20:19:20Z")
I have a couple on mind 1. Star Wars (A New Hope) Back in 1977, no one had ever seen or heard anything like that. 2. The Player 10 minute tracking shot across a movie lot featuring big stars/directors as themselves. 3. Saving Private Ryan The D-Day scene is phenomenal 4. Supertroopers Hysterical. “Officer, I’m already pulled over!” ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/2 "2015-06-29T20:21:33Z")
Harold & Maude. It is a bit disturbing if you are not expecting it but as the movie develops you realize it’s really the only possible opening scene. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/3 "2015-06-29T20:23:37Z")
2001, hands down. Both the opening shot, and the whole pre-human sequence. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/4 "2015-06-29T20:25:41Z")
Patton has to be on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/5 "2015-06-29T20:28:08Z")
_The Godfather_ (1) establishes the mood of that film as well as (if not better than) anything in the genre. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/6 "2015-06-29T20:29:14Z")
The long tracking shot from \*A Touch of Evil. \* ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/7 "2015-06-29T20:32:52Z")
_Raiders of the Lost Ark_ – Great action scenes that introduced a brand-new character in an iconic way _Boogie Nights_ – Undoubtedly influenced by Altman’s tracking shot mentioned in the OP, this long shot introduces most of the movie’s major characters ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/8 "2015-06-29T20:33:00Z")
The opening credits scene for \*\* Touch of Evil\*\* is absolutely compelling – someone puts a bomb in the trunk of a car about to cross the US-Mexico border, and the camera tracks its progress. All the while, the credits roll over the scene. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/9 "2015-06-29T20:33:00Z")
Jaws. The girls last swim… ---
**Author:** ![MegaNazz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@MegaNazz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaNazz)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/10 "2015-06-29T20:42:20Z")
I wouldn’t really say that it’s one of the best movie openings of all time, but the first scene of _The Informers_ based on the Bret Easton Ellis short story collection always sticks in my mind as a good introduction. Too bad everything that followed was so lackluster. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/11 "2015-06-29T20:49:36Z")
[Joe Vs. The Volcano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytS4yFM4Oxw) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/12 "2015-06-29T20:51:17Z")
Probably my favorite opening sequence is the one for Richard Donner’s **superman**. It starts out with a filmed “theater curtain” opening, recalling 1940s cinemas, then goes to a comic book spread open on a typical 1930s/1940s living room rug, with a kid reading the words and turning the pages. As he gets to the end, the camera zooms in on the drawing of the top of the _Daily Planet_ building, which dissolves into a shot of what is clearly supposed to be the real building – with glass-covered “planet” and a Time/life-like headline feed circling it (I always wondered what the Planet building top would look like in real life), but the camera continues up into the sky, going into the stars, which become a moving starfield, with the stars going by on either side. John Williams’ fanfare score starts up, and the R/Greenberg associates titles with their slit-scan appearance (which was incredibly innovative at the time – the trailer for the film used them, and created a huge amount of buzz for the movie), and you get the full fanfare, along with “whooshing” noises accompanying the motion of the slit-scanned credits. It was really impressive, especially if you were sitting in the front rows, and it took you all the way to the planet Krypton with its red sub, taking you through the journey in the young comic book fan’s mind from the humdrum world of the depression to the superscientific world of Superman’s ancestry. (And then, of course, you get the real opening line of the film, delivered by Marlon Brando – “This is no fantasy.”) My only objection is that the film’s special effects (aside from the starfield and the R/Greenberg titles) really aren’t up to it. They tried to show “the wonders of space” with burning fuses and spilling bubbly liquids (supposed to be stars and comets and the like, I suppose), but Kubrick had done it infinitely better ten years before in **2001** , using chemical reactions in tiny spaces. Worse, Krypton’s Red Sun looked more like a ball of red-lit dry ice vapor (which it probably was) than – and convincing suns had been done many times before this ( **2001** , again, but also by lots of other folk.) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/13 "2015-06-29T20:55:14Z")
Not only is it the best opening scene of all time, it’s also the best (and only good) part of the movie: [The Way of the Gun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xsaMcw69D8) (featuring Sarah Silverman’s greatest performance, as well). ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/14 "2015-06-29T21:02:58Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I4) Supertroopers “Littering _and_…littering _and_…” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/15 "2015-06-29T21:08:22Z")
_ **It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World** _, where"Smiler" Grogan kicks the bucket (literally)! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/16 "2015-06-29T21:14:48Z")
Pumpkin and Honey Bunny deciding to rob “a” coffee shop in _ **Pulp Fiction** _. _ **The Great Escape** _, with the German convoy rolling through the countryside to Elmer Bernstein’s score, and finally ending up at the gates of Luft Stalag III. Much, much more than just a title sequence! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/17 "2015-06-29T21:16:30Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The opening credits scene for \*\* Touch of Evil\*\* is absolutely compelling – someone puts a bomb in the trunk of a car about to cross the US-Mexico border, and the camera tracks its progress. All the while, the credits roll over the scene. I know! ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/18 "2015-06-29T21:16:37Z")
[Yojimbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjsAKbJcMAc) [Le Samourai](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ivn2fi1TZY) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/19 "2015-06-29T21:18:06Z")
This one cropped up in an old thread I started and it’s haunted me ever since: [THE KEEP 1983 OPENING SEQUENCE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80xrXMmprWc) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810/20 "2015-06-29T21:19:31Z")
_ **633 Squadron** _, where the Germans are hunting the Norwegian resistance fighters and the courier plane takes off just in the nick of time! _ **The Train** _, where the national treasures of France are being looted with Germanic efficiency—just another day on the job. The banality of evil! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-scenes-in-movies/723810.md?page=2)