Greatest Opening Scenes from Films?

"Office Space."

I was howling with laughter before anyone even arrived at the office.

The opening of Gone With the Wind, with Scarlett and the Tarleton twins on the porch on the eve of the Wilkes barbecue.

Vivien Leigh had to nail it then and she knew it, or no one would care about the rest of the film, and she did.

I'm also partial to the opening of Peter Weir's "Witness" where you see the wholesome waves of Amish country bending in the wind, and the community coming over the rise for the funeral of Rachel's husband. Maurice Jarre's beautiful score for this helped, too.

Love "Boogie Nights", but that and every other long tracking shot owes everything to Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" opening:

The opening tracking shot of Orson Welles's Touch Of Evil. Genius.

I love the opening to Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's one of my favorites. When Clopin hits that final note ("Daaaaaaaaaaaaame"), Quasimodo is finally revealed and the title graphic shows up. It gives me goose bumps every time. The video here cuts out the beginning of it.

Ha! You beat me to it, r4.

Bonnie & Clyde with Faye behind those prison-bar posts of the headboard

This is definitely not for everyone, but Melancholia takes the prize for me.

The "Melancholia" opening is beautiful and haunting. In the movie, Kirsten Dunst's character says that she "knows things", implying she knows for certain that the planet is doomed. Is the opening sequence a "vision" she's having, and thus the trigger for her wedding day depression?

Opening scene of the original "Cape Fear" in black and white, with the camera following Robert Mithcum walking to the courthouse in Savannah, his shoulders radiating danger, and the baleful minor phrase from Bernard Hermann's score playing quietly.

Kidding aside, really, partial to the opening of Disney's 1039 "Snow White" - animation showing a layered aerial view of the fairy-tale city, spiralling down over turrets and rooftops one over the other, including doves circling around, till it gets down to the well where the princess in rags is drawing water.

Remember, it was all done by hand, cel after cel, not with the help of computer softward. It's a stunning achievement in hand-animation if you know anything about the art.

^*1939, of course . . .

Audrey Hepburn walking up a deserted Fifth Avenue (I think) in the wee hours of the morning with Henry Mancini's wistful melody for "Moon River" playing. The opening scene of "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

It's all downhill from that point and much of the film is a ghastly, racist, sexist piece of garbage.

East of Eden. I love how there is no dialogue from James Dean, he is just silently stalking his mother.

I couldn’t find the scene by itself so this one with a side view of the locations the film was shot in modern day will do.

R13 - I concur - another vote here for the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's, as Hepburn gracefully manages the take-away coffee, get the pastry out of the bag, and eat it while gazing in the windows, all whilst looking like a runway model.

I think the piece was of its time, it's kind of useless taking it to task for stuff of that kind. The cast, score, direction, and cinematography made it work. I think it still works, and the last scene is touching.

"Snow White" was 1937.

The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is the best work Tarantino has ever done.

2001.

The opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan” with its D-Day invasion scene was riveting.

There’s one fella that gets his arm shorn off. He then picks it up, as if they could reattach it. Gruesome.

Incidentally, the “Germans” who surrender in the D-Day bunker are actually speaking Czech. They were forced conscripts. These are the guys who the American mocks their surrender, raising his own hands and saying “Look, Ma, I washed for supper.” This is after he shoots them.

R16 - Snow White opened on February 4, 1938. So we were both wrong.

I just turned on Bambi from Disney+ and WOW the opening is gorgeous. I think the landscape backgrounds were done in watercolor and they actually look 3-D because of how they were filmed in layers. This animation really was art.

R21 - I went to an exhibition of the original cels when these first began to be circulated in public. You cannot believe the quality of the work, especially the ones from "Bambi" - they looked like fucking Monets.

The shit they do on the computer today can't hold a candle to it. Another fabled bit of Disney animation is the scene in Gepetto's clock shop early in "Pinocchio", when the clocks all go off differently, and Gepetto and the cat are dancing around the shop, and as Gepetto passed in front of the fireplace his nightgown becomes transparent and you can see the outlines of his legs. Someone I know in animation says no one today has any idea of the skill required to pull that off.

R22 Yeah, the beauty of some old animation is really breathtaking. Organic creativity/handmade art may be less technically impressive than CGI, but sometimes it can really touch you.

The scene at r17 has a big cut in the middle. Poor form.

It’s not the very opening scene, but the beginning synesthesia part of Fantasia is pretty spectacular when you realizing that it is translating mental visions of music into actual visuals.

R9 agree its not for everyone and neither its this one. But for me its one of the best in all of film history.

The opening tracking shot in "Goodfellas" through the back of the Copa, done without one edit.

The opening scene of Howard’s Endwhen Vanessa Redgrave walks around the garden in the evening

[quote]The opening tracking shot in "Goodfellas" through the back of the Copa, done without one edit.

That is not the opening shot.

Yes you are right-- I stand corrected. But I still think it's a great shot. I guess I think it's the opening because it was so good.

The opening battle scene in Star Wars. Pow!

A friend made me watch the opening to this movie Vertical Limit, all I had to know was Chris O’Donnell was in it for me to watch, but it is a great oh shit! Scene.

The opening scene of Altman's "The Player".

Woody Allen's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS.

MANHATTAN is perhaps more well known, but I like this one better.

Here's MANHATTAN for comparison -

The Iraqi archaeological dig scene in The Exorcist.

Alien -- appropriately simple and ominous.

Gloomy work by Gregg Toland -

Opening scenes don't come much more iconic than this:

Or this -

So many great ones here already, but, for pure pop film magic, I still love the opening scene, music and graphics of "Superman" 1978.

Saw this when I was a kid and was amazed. Still am

Here’s the Melancholia opening. Maddeningly syrupy and melodramatic and inexplicable and perfect. The slow motion is so slow that it’s like you’re watching a painting and wondering if it’s moving or if you are losing your mind.

The opening of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. A complete exposition followed by a great song during the opening credits.

Have always liked this -

Idiocracy.

Ted 2 and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I remember including this one when this thread subject was done before. The opening of Ordinary People simply but perfectly sets the mood of the movie.

Surely this must rank up there.

The opening of the film of West Side Story, with its views of the rooftops of the city in ever closer relief, to the whistle and rising pulse of Bernstein's score is also a classic.

Hope can we not forget Scarlett Johansson's ass?

My dad was a physicist and one day he Was watching snow white with my nephew. After a while we heard my nephew call “granddad stop rewinding the video please stop rewinding the video I want to watch this”.!

Dad had picked up on the exquisite detail and observational powers of the animators because he noticed something in the depiction of the ripples in a pond that did not quite fit with what was universally accepted .

He wound up getting a graduate to take the project as his Ph. D in physics.

BUMP

American Beauty

The opening sequence from "Contact" is amazing. One of my favorites:

Trainspotting

One of my favorites... As a five year-old in 1961, it terrified me more than any horror movie...

The epic opening narration of The Road Warrior. Drenched in operatic pathos, it nails a brilliant narrative spike into the ground that sets up the rest of the movie perfectly.

The prologue to HAWAII is an embarrassment of riches, with its lush cinematography, gorgeous Elmer Bernstein score and insight about seismic cultural transitions--Joseph Campbell would have been proud!