Not exactly the opening scene (which is a silent depiction of the destruction of Tokyo inside of a huge, expanding bubble), but the opening biker gang fight sequence immediately following it in the classic anime movie Akira. The graphics and the soundtrack complement each other terrifically. It’s still one of my favorite film sequences to use to calibrate or show off a home theater setup.
Another animated (but not anime) movie with a completely enveloping opening scene is Disney’s The Lion King.
I’ll second the immediate excitement I felt in hearing and seeing the beginning of Pulp Fiction. I’d also second Star Wars but honestly, by the time I saw it I’d heard so much about it from my (6- and 7-year old) friends that it wasn’t so much on the film’s own qualities but based on “the buzz”. (Not that I don’t love the movies to this day, but it’s not really fair to compare.)
And I know I’ll maybe be in the distinct minority here, but Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! gripped me from the get-go.
On the classic movie side, there’s Sunset Boulevard, with its opening scene of a body floating in a swimming pool with a voiceover from the dead man’s perspective.
And – how can we be forgetting the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, showing the storming of the beaches of Normandy on D-Day?
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but the slam-bang introduction to all the colorful characters in Snatch to the tune of Klint’s Diamond is one of my favorite openings of all time.
I always love the way Crooklyn opens. For three minutes, we watch kids, none of them main characters, playing every imaginable game out in the street. All ages. Not a single adult in sight.
Jackie Chan’s Police Force opens with a car chase through a village on a hillside in Hong Kong. Not through the streets, it’s cars chasing each other through the houses themselves, filmed with few cuts in wide shots.
I saw Bad Santa with a friend before anyone had really heard much about it so we didn’t know what to expect. The opening shot of Billy Bob Thornton in a bar on Christmas eve is hilarious - you’re thinking “My god, this must be a joke. They certainly can’t make an entire movie like this. It’ll tone down after this scene.” Then the title of the movie appears as Santa vomits drunkenly in an alley and within minutes you realize “Oh yes they can indeed make an entire movie this way”. Theater full of patrons laughed themselves sore all movie long.
I wasn’t crazy about Silverado, but it had a great opening scene.
Back in 1988, I took a date to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I had already seen it once (with a different girl), but she had somehow not heard a thing about it. Had no idea what the basic idea of the movie was. So when we see the opening cartoon, she was completely taken by surprise when the director shouts “Cut!” and Roger walks out into a live-action studio. Even if you know about it, it’s still a great opening, but I wish I could have experienced it the way she did.
I am not sure if this one counts, as it is not an opening, but perhaps as an establishing shot -
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as they come up over the hill upon their arrival for the Quidditch Cup. Nothing, nothing, nothing - and then the whole wizarding world opens up in front of them. “I love magic.” Perfect!
Or the opening shot in Memento - [spoiler]which is the last shot of the movie.
There are times when I don’t enough time to sit down and watch even a half hour episode of something on the TV, I’ll plump instead for the opening to Mad Max, ten odd frenetic minutes of car chase.
My favorite opening scene ever is from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, of course.
When the movie first came out we were all wondering about Spock’s death, you know…so the Kobiashi Maru sequence had us all on the edge of our seats…who is this female Vulcan in command? Uh, oh, here come the Klingons…oh no!! Not Bones too! Not Uhura! Spock is already dead this early!!! Then we hear Kirk’s voice and his ultra cool entrance as he walks onto the simulation deck…whew, maybe Spock’s not gonna die after all.
What a ride we were in for after that excellent opening!!!
The problem with the opening to Saving Private Ryan is that it’s not the Normandy invasion.
It’s that stupid cemetery scene that Spielberg uses to frame the movie.
Clint also did it in Letters From Iwo Jima. That’s a pretty corny cliche. . .made even worse that when I see directors like Clint or Spielberg do it, all I can think is, “that’s the Titanic opening.”
(yeah, I’m sure it was done before Titanic, but like it or not, that’s probably the most well-knwon incarnation of it)
While the rest of the film goes on and on and on, I did like (as a Trekkie) the opening to the Motion Picture. The introduction to the new Klingons, against a huge unknown entity, with that orchestral score and a pretty good sense of scale from the new Klingon vessels, all went together pretty well.
That’s where the footage of the Klingon cruisers for the opening of The Wrath of Khan came from wasn’t it?
The 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead isn’t the masterpiece that the original was, but the first ten minutes, through the opening credits, are just great.
That soundtrack really is powerful. Though I believed the movie started with Kaneda and his gang getting disciplined at their school, but maybe that was the aftermath of the motorcycle ride.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead : fantastically gory opening sequence, a car crash, and then the opening credits with Johnny Cash’s “When the man comes around” playing ominously.
I like Undiscovered Country. Opening credits over a star screen, then suddenly…BOOM! Cut to Sulu enjoying a cup of tea, then Excelsior being tossed about like a paper boat, and probably one of the most chilling lines ever from Star Trek:
“Sir, I can confirm the location of Praxus, but…I cannot confirm the existence of Praxus.”
Got to put my vote in for the beginning of Fight Club, where we experience a trippy zoom out of Ed Norton’s body to the barrel of a gun plunged into his mouth (WTF??!!)
I also liked the opening sequence to True Lies…Arnold pulls off a very James Bond like espionage mission.
How about the cheesy start to Romancing the Stone? My boyfriend and I almost walked out of the theatre, then we see Kathleen Turner sobbing at her typewriter (this was a few years ago) and we go, “Ohhhhhhh…got it.”
