As previously mentioned:
Disney’s Tarzan
The Lion King
Terminator 2
And something new:
Pitch Black
I’ll second The Lion King and Star Wars. They really set the mood for the entire movie within the first few minutes. Awesome.
May I hijack this thread and ask what is the worst movie opening you’ve ever seen? My vote goes to the opening of the movie “The Outsiders.” The opening (and ending) of that book were perfect, and in the movie they don’t explain it at all. It just has 1 or 2 occasional cuts of a person writing in the middle of the movie. Awful.
The Color Purple, -Starts with the old man wrenching a newborn baby away from Celie, and leaving the house. You don’t know until near the end of the movie that he didn’t kill it.
I gotta second Aliens 3. That was pretty intense.
How about John Carpenter’s The Thing. Opening scene: Helicopters following Huskies across the antarctic and just as they get to the American camp they open fire on the dogs. Shook me pretty bad.
Clockwork Orange.
I still shutter.
In 1978, I saw SUPERMAN on opening night.
The pan up from the Daily Planet building into the night sky, the music building until with a fanfare, the big red and yellow S logo burns onto the screen…the audience cheered and applauded (not something that often happens at the start of a movie.
How about the first scene in the diner from Pulp Fiction. Pretty intense, and then the segue into the opening credits with that kick-ass theme. Whoa!
Nothing will ever beat the first 15 minutes of Raiders for sheer exhilaration.
The opening of Once Upon a Time in the West was pondering, but captivating all the same. Really set the mood for the movie.
I agree with the already mentioned “Patton.” and would like to add:
“The Wild Bunch”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” takes you an interesting direction too.
Probably the most memorable, however, for anyone who has seen movies and is out of their teen years has to be “Sunset Boulevard”. It has been parodied time after time, but the reason for that is because it is so very, very memorable.
How about Platoon The whole opening half with R. Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant is riveting.
How about the first scenes in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’?
And another vote for Star Wars and Contact.
A 7th vote for Contact (which is still one of my favorite movies.
Another would be the opening to Dead Alive I’ll elaborate since few of you have probably seen it. Scientist and his little grunt worker steal a monkey from an island. Island natives get pissed and come after scientist. Scientist and grunt worker run like a little bitch. They escape only to have the scientist get bitten by the monkey. Immedeately they stop the vehicle pull the scientist out and cut of his hand (that is where he got bit). Next they see his other arm got bit then chopped it off. Finally they saw a bite mark on his head then chopped it off. Oh yeah I still twitch whenever the little grunt worker falls trying to catch the vehicle and lands face first into a rock.
I’m putting my vote in for Raiders of the Lost Ark as well.
Another great sequence is the opening gun fight in the tea house in Hard Boiled
GuanoLad ~ Pitch Black’s opening kicked @ss! From the tiny debris cutting through the ship, to the planet’s atmosphere tearing away the exterior walls. I actually said “Wow.” Further more, I saw it at home not in the theater.
And for something completely different…
Here, here gigi ~
Much Ado About Nothing has the most beautiful & festive openings I have seen. I think that was a great movie. Really well done.
Maybe this marks me a philistine, but what about…
Charlie’s Angels
?
I have to throw in with “The Wild Bunch” as well. I’ll bet I’ve seen it a dozen times, and ever time William Holden busts into the railroad office, throws the clerk against the wall and barks, “If they move, kill 'em!” - followed by the “Directed by Sam Peckinpah” credit, my heart skips a beat.
And mind you, this all happens before the shoot 'em up that follows the credits!
The opening of “Point Blank” - the '67 film with Lee Marvin, not the '97 mess with Mickey Rourke - gets the old adrenaline pumping, too!