The opening scene of any film is an important aspect that will let you know if you’re in good hands. It is up to the filmmaker to grab you from the beginning, so you know that you are about to experience a well-made movie. There are many ways to carry out an opening scene depending on the genre. You can make it exciting and action-packed right from the get-go, or you can use dialogue to establish your characters from the start. There are several ways to open a film, but no matter what, it is essential that the opening scene is captivating to the audience.
Aaron Sorkin showed us in The Social Network, that you can create an opening scene strictly through dialogue. It takes a good writer to make the dialogue as exciting as the action, but Sorkin does it with ease. Films such as The Lion Kingand West Side Storyuse music and visuals to grab the audience’s attention, while a horror film may show a murder or some violence to kick off the film. No matter what genre, a good filmmaker will know how to start off a film, so the audience knows that they are about to be on a satisfying cinematic ride. Here are the greatest opening movie scenes, ranked.
Updated, July 2022: To keep the article fresh and relevant by adding more information and entries, this article has been updated by Rafa Boladeras.
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13 Scream
Miramax Films
Scream wanted to be a different scary movie from the start. And it shows from its opening scene, as Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) receives a taunting call asking her about scary movies. What at the start looks like a prank, gets weirder and scarier, as the caller keeps getting more and more sinister, personal, and menacing, until the blonde and her boyfriend get killed in gruesome ways. Craven’s direction, Williamson’s self-referential script, and the killing of the character performed by the most famous actress in the cast showed that Scream was a different kind of scary movie. The franchise has had many killings since then, but you never forget your first. Special kudos to Barrymore for asking to be Casey, as Kevin Williamson told Vulture: “I really just want to play the opening scene. That’s my favorite part of the movie.”
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12 Up
Walt Disney StudiosMotion Pictures
Up’s opening scene tells a complete story in a few minutes. Carl and Ellie’s story. It’s a love story, full of tenderness and a sad ending. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, learn they can’t have children, grow old together, while planning to travel to the dream destination, and then she gets ill and dies before they can. It’s charming, romantic, cute, sad, and it’s devastating. In seven minutes, Up shows us a story that could’ve been a whole movie (and a good one) to give us context for one of the two protagonists in the movie.
11 Touch of Evil
Universal-International
A bomb is placed in a car near the Mexican-American border. The audience is the only ones who know. We follow the car with the bomb and how close it is to our leads, Mike and Susan Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh). It follows an incredible tracking shot, while creating tension with its tick-tock-tick-tock until it explodes, without hurting our heroes. Orson Welles was a pioneer, and the tracking shot in the opening scene of Touch of Evil is just another example. Back then, tracking shots were very uncommon. Both as a cinematic idea and a mechanical one, as they had to create some new tools, so the camera could follow the shot Welles had in mind.
10 Drive
Bold Films
Nicolas Winding Refn’s thrilling crime drama, Drive, starts the film off on the right note with an epic car chase. We meet our main character known as The Driver (Ryan Gosling) calmly waiting for two thieves who have just carried out a robbery. The clock is ticking, and when they arrive, The Driver escapes the scene of the crime, while avoiding the police with his masterful driving. It is an adrenaline-pumping scene that perfectly establishes the tone and the main character of the film.
9 The Lion King
Walt Disney Pictures
Disney’s The Lion King opens up in epic fashion as we soar through the African land witnessing the many creatures of the animal kingdom. It is a vibrant, colorful scene that features some of the best Disney animations of all time. At the same time, “Circle Of Life’’ is a brilliant song that creates feelings of excitement. We meet the king of the jungle, Mufasa, and his son Simba is shown off to the animal kingdom right before we see the opening title card. Just with this start, it was obvious The Lion King would become one of the best Disney movies.
8 The Dark Knight
Warner Bros. Pictures
Christopher Nolan is a master of his craft and created one of the best opening scenes of any superhero film in The Dark Knight. The heist, carried out by a gang of men in clown masks, is riveting and suspenseful. Throughout the heist, many of the characters discuss their mysterious boss named Joker, creating a great build-up for the movie’s villain. By the end, we learn that Joker is one of the men working the heist, and we are shown the brilliance of the criminal mastermind.
7 The Matrix
Warner Bros.
The opening scene from The Matrix is iconic and showed us some of the coolest stunts ever on-screen. Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) is on the run from the police, but we find out that she can actually defy gravity, as she runs up walls and jumps from building to building. The stunt choreography is brilliant and intense, and the entire scene sets up the tone of the movie perfectly. It was life-changing as only the best films ever could be, creating a new cinematic language that’s still being used today.
6 There Will Be Blood
Paramount Vantage
The opening scene from Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is a perfect example of how to set up a character. What is even more amazing is that Anderson sets up Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his best performances ever) with no dialogue. We watch as Plainview strikes oil, but is injured while doing so, forcing him to crawl miles through the desert to retrieve his money. It perfectly shows you how ruthless Plainview is, and that he would do anything it takes for success.
5 Inglourious Basterds
The Weinstein Company
Quentin Tarantino’s epic WWII film Inglourious Basterds gives us a great example of using dialogue to set up a movie and establish an antagonist. The scene is mostly the dialogue between Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet) as Landa interrogates him about a missing Jewish family. We soon find out that the family is underneath LaPadite’s floorboards creating sheer suspense. Landa is a terrifying character who is brilliant at interrogation. It is a solid, well-acted scene and some of the best dialogue ever written.
4 The Social Network
Sony Pictures Releasing
Aaron Sorkin proved once again that he is a master of dialogue with the screenplay for The Social Network. The film kicks off with Mark (Jesse Eisenberg) and Erica (Rooney Mara) having some beers in a Harvard bar. The scene rises in intensity as the conversation continues, showing us that a good writer can make an exciting scene with just two characters talking. The performances of the two actors are top-notch and the conflict written into the scene keeps you on the edge of your seat. As Fincher told TimeOut: “The first scene in a movie should teach the audience how to watch it.” And this one does it spectacularly.
3 The Godfather
Paramount Pictures
The opening of The Godfather shows us a man desperately asking Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) for help on the day of Corleone’s daughter’s wedding. It is an iconic scene that features one of the greatest performances of all time from Brando. The use of light and shadow creates a beautiful sequence and the dialogue is so iconic, that many of the lines are still quoted to this day. It is the perfect introduction to Don Corleone and the story of The Godfather.
2 Jaws
Universal Pictures
Steven Spielberg created an opening scene in Jaws that made several people afraid to swim in the ocean. The scene follows a doomed young woman and her boyfriend as they get ready to jump into the ocean on a Summer night. Only the young woman gets in, and she is attacked by a great white shark. Although we don’t see the shark, the music and her screams, as she’s being eaten alive, make it one of the most terrifying opening scenes of all time.
1 Saving Private Ryan
DreamWorks Pictures
The opening scene of Saving Private Ryan is quite possibly the most realistic depiction of a war battle in cinematic history. We watch American troops storm Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion leading to a blood-filled battle that can be hard to watch sometimes. The sound and violent images of war shows are intense and make you feel as if you are watching the actual battle. Spielberg completely recreated the battle and gave us the most iconic opening scene in film history, in one of the best World War 2 movies ever made.
