Yes, oh movie guru who knows better than us all. Please provide me with my hair shirt, size medium, so that i may not forget the error of my ways.
:rolleyes:
I vote for Octopussy, the whole tiny airplane with the missles after it sequence.
What did I do wrong? I wasn’t trying to be condescending, it was just another dumb variation of the phrase “I can’t believe no one has mentioned…”. Sheesh. It seems you come across is a jackass if you don’t use smilies here. Ok, for the bastardized version of my post, I present to you v 2.0:
Sorry. 
Well, to be honest, i also get a bit annoyed at the “I can’t believe no-one has mentioned…” posts.
But i probably over-reacted. Sorry.
I had forgotten about Touch of Evil. It still doesn’t quite hit my top 5 but it certainly deserves mention.
It’s not the longest single shot by far; Russian Ark’s 96 minute unbroken shot takes the record, at least as far as commercial films go. But it is a phenomonally long and complex moving shot, another notch in the belt of The Master. (Welles, not Cecil.)
Stranger
East St. Louis?
I opened this thread to cast a vote for Patton. I’ll still do so, without getting involved in the above hissy-fits.
Can I propose Barbarella?
Damn, you beat me to it. I saw this movie in a theater in SF when it first came out, and knew after that opening sequence that I was in for a great evening of entertainment.
American History X and Pulp Fiction.
Pulp fiction’s beginning was an excellent way to set the tone for such a great movie. It was like the movie was in a parallel dimension where everyone knew how to talk cool. Not the mainstream cheesefest cool that other movies try to show, but the cool that comes from having a unique style and character that you define on your own terms. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny had there own style which came out in full blast at the opening scene…
Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya! And then the theme music. How can you beat that?
American History X also had a cool start.
The fatal mountain-climbing accident that opens Cliffhanger surely deserves inclusion in a list of good openers. You expect until the last second that Stallone’s “Gabe” will find a way to save his friend’s girlfriend, and when he fails, it comes as a shock. The scene accomplishes a lot, introducing the main characters and their physical abilities, showing why their friendship ended and why Gabe gave up his rescue work, and making clear how dangerously unforgiving mountain-climbing can be.
No, ivylass had it right. The Saving Private Ryan opening and closing scenes take place at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, which is on a cliff above the Omaha Beach site.
I agree. As an aside:
It is such a cool and memorable opening that it never keeps me from getting pissed off when we’re back on the cafe in the closing scenes. When the opening is redone (albeit from a different angle) what Honey Bunny says is “…and I’ll execute every one of you motherfuckers”. Irksome. Yes, I know it’s lame, but pet peeves usually are. 
The opening scene in Peacemaker up to the detonation of the thermonuclear warhead was excellent. A pity such an opening meant the rest of the film had impossible standards to live up to.
The Bond opening sequences (not scenes really) are sadly cliched because of their own success. Everybody is familiar with the bass line played for his theme.
In *The Spy who Loved Me * when he skies off the cliff the sound goes quiet except for the rushing of the wind. When his parachute designed like the Union Jack opens, the full orchestral theme with the great brass and horn sections give me a goosbump or two to see it.
What’s really pissy is when they show the movie on TV and have to clean up all the language. “Pulp Fiction” is one movie that should never be shown on TV, you lose too much when you lose the language.
Team America: World Police with an over-zealous Team America obliviously destroying most of Paris.
I’ll cast a second vote for Barbarella.
Oh, lots of good scenes to mention - The opening of Star Trek : The Motion Picture is actually quite nice.
There was something else I came in here to mention, but I forgot… oh!
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.
Gotta be the opening scene of Full Metal Jacket, when the Gunnery Sergeant makes clear in fairly colorful language what he thinks of the recruits and what hell their lives are going to be for the next few weeks.
This is exactly what I thought of upon reading the thread title.