25 Best Opening Scenes in Movies & What Makes Them Great

“Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” A simple question, and one I cannot fully relate to, but Trainspotting and specifically the Trainspotting opening helps me try to understand. 

We get an intro to the group of friends, the rough-and-tumble world we’re about to enter, and are injected with a shot of energy much like the heroin that will consume our protagonists for the duration of the film.  

Listening to the “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television,” it’s a clear predecessor to many other anti-corporation, anarchist-type films like Fight Club. 

Opening Movie Sequence

24. The Player (1992)

Director Robert Altman has delivered a lot of fantastic openings (McCabe and Mrs. Miller’s alluring Leonard Cohen-accompanied beginning just missed the cut), but The Player tops them all. It’s hilarious, intriguing, and technically brilliant.

How’s this for a task: an 8-minute unbroken shot containing dozens of different characters all with speaking rolls, and all moving according to intricate blocking, mixed with multiple improvised monologues. Somehow, Altman makes it feel effortless, as the camera glides from person to person, pitch to pitch.

The performances here, too, can’t be ignored. Altman got real screenwriters to come up with the worst movie ideas they could think of and had them pitch them in real time. It works swimmingly, and is as biting as satire gets.

The glimpse into the traffic-filled commute is the perfect tone-setter for this mundane, relatable office comedy. 

Losing a race to a guy in a walker, feeling self-conscious about your rapping, and having mental breakdowns… we’ve all been there. 

Unless it’s a list about best comedies, the comedy genre tends to get snubbed by lists, awards, really everything. Despite the “comedy” label, I had to get Office Space on the list.  

Not featured in the video, the true opening of this film is a monologue by Nicholas Cage, standing in a street full of bullets. He tells us “there are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s one firearm for every 12 people on the planet. The only question is, how do we arm the other 11?”

A fine monologue, but what’s more interesting is the opening titles. Lord of War is a film about an arms dealer, opening with the “life of a bullet” ending in an African child's head makes a clear statement. 

More of a montage than a scene, it’s not as gripping and visceral as some of the other items on the list, but it’s as creative as any. The shot from within the barrel of a rifle is awesome. 

“Are you watching closely?” After this scene, you better be. The opening scene of The Prestige is genius for so many reasons (not just Michael Caine’s voice) and it’s even better after you’ve seen the entire film. 

Nolan perfectly sets the tone for this rivalry-fueled thriller. You learn about magic, but more importantly, you learn about our characters. 

When Christian Bale’s character sees Hugh Jackman drowning, he’s shocked, speechless, it’s clear he didn’t do it… yet he watches him drown. These two men know each other and we want to know why. 

Voice over has proven very popular thus far, appearing in 5 of the first 7 openings on the list. Is the Mad Max: Fury Road opening scene better with or without the voice-over? Hard to say, but this introduction to Max's world looks and sounds amazing. 

The cinematography and production design of Mad Max: Fury Road is truly incredible, and the opening is no exception. The first wide shot from behind, the car rolling into the dust, Tom Hardy scrambling away from a mob of strange, pale assailants. It’s all so strange, so different, and so enticing.

Narc is the most unknown movie on the list and has one of the lowest IMDb ratings (7.1). What does that tell you? The opening scene has to be amazing. 

It’s a handheld foot chase through low-income housing. The lighting is subdued and subtle. There is no score, just breathing, footsteps, screaming, and gunshots. 

Narc is a low-budget portrayal of the gritty reality of a narcotics officer. The opening is a flashback (a common opening device) to an event 18 months prior that got our protagonist fired. 

One of the greatest thrillers of all time starts in a rather straightforward manner, with a rooftop chase. A chase that ends in death, a death that leaves the protagonist with a condition called vertigo and forces him to quit his job.

The opening chase and retired cop may feel cliched, this one particularly springs thoughts of Skyfall and The Other Guys, but remember folks, Vertigo came out in 1958. It’s the oldest film on the list. 

It doesn’t hurt that Vertigo has one of the best scores of all time to fuel this opening scene. Bernard Herrmann's dizzying soundtrack is the perfect complement to the scene's dramatic visuals.

Paul Thomas Anderson loves a tracking shot, and directors love opening films with a long shot. The opening shot of Boogie Nights hits both those birds with one incredible well-thrown stone. 

In a Scorsese, Goodfellas-like manner, we enter the club with big-shot Jack Horner and his girl Amber. As the shot continues, we’re introduced to Reed, Buck, Rollergirl, and eventually... Dirk. 

But Dirk gets special treatment. He gets slow motion and a close-up. Then a cut back to Jack. The two lock eyes. Stage set. 

Fueled by a great movie soundtrack, we are introduced to the strange world of this film, get a taste of the ensemble cast, and understand Dirk brings something different to the table. 

What a tone-setter this one is. Starting with that strange eyelash, the scene continues to get weirder and weirder. From the voice-over, to the sexualized mannequins, to men in matching white outfits drinking milk, you quickly realize this film is gonna be disturbing.  

Thankfully, the Korova Milkbar is not a real place, it was the only set built for the film. Lead actor Malcolm McDowell thought the film was going to be shot as a dark comedy and he feels there is a fair amount of humor in the film. Yet, despite satirical notes, the “ultra-violence” throughout A Clockwork Orange is no joke. It’s American Psycho on steroids. 

The Coen Brothers love voice-over to start a film. They open Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, and No Country For Old Men with VO, just to name a few. It’s a Coen Brothers trademark. 

“I don’t wanna push my chips forward, and go out and meet something I don’t understand.” It’s a powerful message, it tells you a lot about where the movie is headed and parallels nicely with this opening scene.

As you walk away from this sequence, what sticks with you is Javier Bardem. His ruthlessness, his pale face, that weird air gun thingy he’s using. Five minutes in and he’s already got two kills.

This certainly is No Country For Old Men. 

To be fair, I’m a sucker for any sort of interview or baseline test, but this scene is awesome. From that strange eye-reading device and breathing monitor to the performances from the interviewer and the interviewee. You can tell something is off the whole scene, and we aren’t quite sure what's happening.

Eerie sounds of machinery and background throbbing build tension without a score. For a movie released in 1982, the look and feel of Blade Runner’s opening scene is astounding. 

Just so I can get two for the price of one, I’ll also link to Blade Runner 2049’s opening, perhaps equally great. 

Sam Mendes shows total control over the bond franchise with a rooftop motorcycle chase in Istanbul, part of a pursuit that’s a mixture of foot, car, motorcycle, train, and for a moment, construction digger. 

Perhaps most notable is how this opening scene ends, with Bond shot, plummeting down into a ravine, falling from the sky. 

Bond openings are sometimes all about theatrics, this gives us that, and much more. Is it the best Bond movie? 

MI III - Movie Opening Scene

9. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Action scenes have started to take over the list, but this one is more interrogation than action. It’s a genius way to entice the audience, the opening shot right up on Tom Cruise, handcuffed to a chair. 

The ticking clock works perfectly as the action escalates. Held together by Cruise and Hoffman, you leave this scene fully invested in the Rabbits Foot, and wondering how the hell they ended up in this situation.

It’s hard to imagine anyone watching this scene and not immediately adding Mission: Impossible III to their watchlist. Unfortunately, the film has the lowest IMDb rating of any on the list (6.9). 

We talked before about long takes, and few movies define long take quite like Children of Men. This opening scene is over 100 seconds long.

In one shot, it tells us:

• Our lead character is detached and despondent
• This movie takes place in a dirty and pessimistic future in which the youngest person in the world was 18
• Things are chaotic, but still held together in some sense
  
  

Much like Blade Runner, a great dystopian sci-fi especially benefits from a strong opening, and this one delivers. 

Full disclosure… I might have a special inkling to Children of Men. The main character’s name is Thelonious, but he goes by Theo. Just like me. 

The gang chit-chats in the diner for 7-minute about Like A Virgin and tipping, it has nothing to with the heist. It does have to do with character, as traits and actions here prove very telling of what occurs later in the film. 

That’s all I’ll say in case some of you still haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs, but I hope it’s an unnecessary precaution.  

Is it possible to make any top 10 list without including The Godfather? Not today. We don’t even hear The Godfather talk for over 2 minutes. We don’t see his face for nearly 3 minutes! The amount of power shown through camera movement and blocking, lighting techniques, and subtle acting moments by Marlon Brando is truly unmatched.

Instead of getting angry and showing his power, The Godfather proves his worth by schooling Bonasera in respect and decency. Yet, in the end, he holds a favor over the man's head. 

We understand Don Corleone is a man of great power and principle, one who has mercy but also the potential to be merciless. 

I told you Nolan wasn’t done. The Dark Knight is another film that makes its way onto list after list after list. 

For my money, Heath Ledger played the best Joker ever, and it starts in the first scene of the film. We get a heist directed by Nolan, paired with a Hans Zimmer score, an Oscar-winning performance, and a classic Joker line: “I believe whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you… stranger.” 

That’s a recipe for success. When you talk about opening scenes (especially in recent history) this film always enters the conversation. 

It’s an extremely bold choice to open one of the best sci-fi films ever with a 15-minute prehistoric sequence, not to mention starting any movie with 25 dialogue-free minutes! This sequence sets the stage and frames the rest of the film like few opening scenes ever have. 

Note: Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (A great opening in its own right) starts with 15 dialogue-free minutes.

It’s no secret Tarantino’s was influenced by the best Spaghetti Westerns, but I really feel it in this opening. The build-up, pacing, use of music. Tarantino has stated Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West is the movie that made him consider filmmaking. 

But enough about Tarantino, this should be about Sergio Leone. Not pictured in the above clip is about 7 minutes of build-up with three men waiting for battle. There’s an awesome moment where a fly gets trapped in the barrel of a gun. The buzzing of the fly provides an audio transition to the train (and the lone gunman's) arrival. 

This slow, deliberate pacing sets the stage, then we get the harmonica and Ennio Morricone’s incredible score, before BANG! What an opening. 

Definitely classifiable as a heist scene, this is the way you open a franchise. 

Directed by Steven Spielberg, you can feel George Lucas’s hands all over this bad boy. From the Star Wars-esque John Williams score, to the swashbuckling Harrison Ford, to the lowering wall.

The scene has booby traps, backstabbing, and death at every turn. Despite all that, it manages to keep a lighthearted, adventurous tone on only the way Harrison Ford can. It’s the gold standard opening action scene, and one of the best action movies of all time. 

This scene is amazing for many reasons. It takes a lot of mastery to create a 20-minute single-location scene. What stands out first is Tarantino’s dialogue, and by the same token, Christoph Waltz’s performance of said dialogue. 

It’s one thing to make a 20-minute scene, it’s another to make one so monologue heavy. It’s even one more thing to have these monologues delivered by Christoph Waltz (an unknown to American audiences at the time).

His calm delivery, confident rationalizations, and the fact that he knows exactly where the Jewish family is the whole time... Waltz would’ve gotten the Oscar from this scene alone. 

Perhaps the success and execution of this scene encouraged Tarantino to write The Hateful Eight (2015), in which the majority of the film takes place in a similar cabin with a massive amount of dialogue.