The opening battle of Gladiator was pretty spectacular. Sadly, that may have been the best and only good part of the movie. The same can be said of Gangs of New York, IMHO.
Bridge on the River Kwai with Alec Guiness and the captured British troops marching practically triumphantly into the prison camp while whistling The Colonel Bogey March.
Agreed, astonishing shots
My all time favourite is Star Wars, I swear my [cinema] seat nearly shook off it’s foundations.
Stink Fish Pot, I suppose you’re right about the opening of The Incredibles.
Oh, yeah! Roman troops v. Germanic barbarians. Good, good stuff.
LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring opens with Galadriel’s voice-over, describing the creation, capture and loss of the Ring. A near-perfect mix of words, images and music.
The film that immediately came to mind was “Apocalypse Now.” I don’t really care much for the movie as a whole, but the opening is truly haunting.
While the opening of “Fellowship” was wonderful, the opening scene of “The Two Towers” was the best of the 3 LOTR films, I think.
I think the opening scene for The Last Boyscoutwas pretty damn good.
I think the opening scene of the 2009 Star Trek Reboot is one of the better opening 8 minutes in recent history -
Yeah, you’re right.
The opening of Robert Altman’s Gosford Park is a single shot look at what went on backstairs at a large English manor house, preparing for a special weekend. It’s frantic and stressful and hectic, which sets the tone for the whole film really beautifully.
Edward Zwick did a really great film in 2008 about the Bielski Partisans called Defiance that opens with grainy black and white newsreel footage of Hitler and archival footage of the purging of Jews from Belorussia with all the atrocities, then segues into full color on the same scene, families being ripped apart, screaming children being dragged away, elderly men being shot on site just for sport by laughing Nazis, the whole terrifying imagery. It’s tense and painful and a mere 2.5 minutes but that’s more than enough.
It’s ~11 minutes, and the tears start at 7:15, the full on weeping at 9:25 when the actors’ voices are muted and all we hear is Michael Giacchino’s score.
And who knew that was the first glimpse we were getting of the next big brand new action superstar?
When I read the title, the only one that came to mind was “Action Jackson”, IIRC, it had Carl Weathers in it as the star.
Now, I must defend myself. 1. After the opening scene, the movie began to suck uber-bigtime. I don’t just mean suck…I MEAN SUCKKKKKKK. I can still smell it, too, and it’s been close to 30 years. One turd movie. 2. It may not even have been that good, as it was almost 30 years ago, and it may have been only innovative for the time, and 3. It may not even have been only innovative, and I was just a bigger dork 30 years ago.
OOPS, just remembered, tho…Kenneth Branagh’s*** Henry V*** had a pretty cool opening. Don’t know if it was best, or not.
Once Upon A Time in the West gets my vote. It’s even better if you watch it in German:
“Haben Sie ein Pferd fur mich?”
“Nein, wir haben nur drei. Ein zu wenig.”
“Nei. Zwei zu viel!” 
I was going to add A Fistful of Dollars to the list, but it turns out the “opening” scene I was thinking of is actually about twelve minutes into the flick:
“Get three coffins ready.”
“Eh?”
POW! * POW! * POW! * POW!
“My mistake. Four coffins.”
mmmm
WHY hasn’t anyone mentioned the Boogie Nights tracking shot?