I always liked the opening to “Beetlejuice”, where there’s a fly-over of the town which ends up turning into a fly-over of Adam’s model of the town. Plus, the opening title music by Danny Elfman is awesome.
How about The Untouchables (the little girl and the exploding briefcase)?
And the currently-running Batman Begins has a nice opening fight scene.
I thought I read or heard somewhere that Tarantino did that on purpose to kind of illustrate how different people remember events in slightly different ways…
carry on…
The opening scene in Goodfellas with the guy in the trunk of the car:
“All my life I wanted to be a gangster…”
I still remember seeing that for the first time.
I like the opening shot of Fargo, in which the screen is completely white at first, and a car gradually becomes visible.
I once heard someone say about Fargo, “It’s not really a color movie. It’s not even a black-and-white movie. It’s a white movie.”
My pick is for The Two Towers. Didn’t matter that it was a rehash of a scene from the previous movie. It grabs you by fanboy nads and says “watch <i>this</i>.”
No, even better was the puppets being controlled by the puppets at the VERY beginning. Supposedly that was a joke at the expense of the studio execs who got to watch the movie first. 
I would agree with you except that scene you are speaking of is not the opening scene. The opening scene was a bunch of guys getting their heads shaved, pretty lame compared to the next scene that you are speaking of.
Just checking in to say this is what first popped into MY mind when I read the thread title!
Spaceballs. Excellent opening.
Way of the Gun
Benicio Del Toro & Ryan Phillipe’s characters are presented in no uncertain terms in the opening scene leaving the rest of the movie to detail their dynamics.
Too many movies spend the first 80 minutes building a character and only use the last 10-20 minutes for development. Bah, I say.
The rest of the movie sucked, but the beginning of A Kiss Before Dying with Matt Dillon and Sean Young is fantastic–a happy couple goes to the Philadelphia City Hall for a marriage license but the office is closed for lunch so they go up to the roof to look at the city. She hops up and sits on the wall and suddenly he grabs her legs and flips her off the roof. Nothing else in the movie is worth watching.
I second The Player, but for the 8-minute uninterrupted shot to start the movie…
Zowie, now I have to rent this just to see Sean Young get thrown off a building. Hope I don’t wreck the DVD player rewinding and replaying this scene over and over and over again!
Even though I hate the movie as a whole, I’ve got to say that the opening to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kicks much ass. I just watched it again, and it’s every bit as cool as I remembered it, even with the dark spectre of Short Round looming over everything. It’s got the opening gong with the Paramount logo, the big spectacular musical number, intrigue, several double-crosses, a director saying “look how hot my future girlfriend is,” a car chase, and a guy getting impaled by a flaming skewer. Usually it takes zombies, monkeys, or ninjas to say “this movie has everything!” but adding any to this sequence would’ve just been overkill.
Plus watching it now gives that neat sense of double-nostalgia: the Busby Berkeley musical number and all the art deco evokes the 30’s, while all the blue neon and the overall Spielbergosity of the whole thing evokes the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Nitpick: Temple of Doom
Ditto.
Interesting tidbit: Many parts of the opening scene for The Temple of Doom (the gong, the dance number, the poison) were written for conceived for Raiders of the Lost Ark but couldn’t be fit into the storyline. (Considering how much of the film was written around key scenes–the cave opening, the Nepalese bar, the market scene, the caravan chase, et cetera) it is surprising how coherent the final story actually is; no doubt a attributable to screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan who worked a similar magic on George Lucas’ best Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back. Of course, he’s also credited with writing and producting The Bodyguard and Wyatt Earp as well as directing the latter, so clearly he has his transgressions to answer for.)
It’s a pity the rest of Temple wasn’t as good as the opening scene; the stunts were fine but the story was balsh and the nepotism in the casting of a certain role was…regrettable. Also, with the film actually being a prequel to Raiders, the “reach for the gun to shoot the swordsman” doubletake doesn’t actually make sense. The film actually works a lot better as a Bond movie (egomaniacal nemesis, secret underground lair, legion of self-sacrificing troops) only Bond would have bedded the bird earlier and would have gambled more.
Stranger
I’ll never understand this gripe, despite having heard it countless times. I just don’t get how the audience is part of the timeline. Why can’t it be a standard tactic the character uses? It’s not a joke to him…it’s a joke to the audience.
Anyway, my contribution isn’t really an opening scene, but a titles sequence. Waterworld had the effect of the earth logo flooding. That was a very nice, cool touch.
Gack. In my defense, I was writing that while trying to hurriedly pack for a plane flight.
It’s particularly dumb because of the bit that I was going to say but forgot: watching it again today reminded me of just how amazed I was the first time I saw it and Kate Capshaw walked out in front of the opening titles. “They can do that?!?” It blew my 13-year-old mind.
So yeah – that’s why I got the title wrong; there was a woman standing in the way.
And another great opening, but far more low-key: Rushmore. The curtain and title cards (and horrible painting) give the whole thing the feeling of a school play, and the “world’s hardest math problem” perfectly sums up Max’s character.
Yes, the Universal Studios’ logo of the Earth flooding at the beginning of “Waterworld” was cool - the best part of the movie, as a matter of fact.
Ditto Gandalf plunging down into the depths of Moria as he hacks at the Balrog with his sword (caught in mid-air!), from “The Two Towers.”
I like Mr. Incredible on his way to his wedding but taking some time out to help citizens and fight crime, from “The Incredibles.” (“Officers… ma’am… Squeaker.”)
And going back a bit further, remember Fred McMurray describing his own demise at the beginning of “Double Indemnity”?