What are some of the great film openings?

Well, I discussed this in the Tár thread - that great movie actually has THREE precise great openings - not just a great opening scene but 3 that are interconnected and actually "starts / resets / restarts" :

1. The credits - ie the beginning is the end for Lydia......it's a sick joke really......

2. The interview in which Lydia at least - at best acts pompously and too secure in herself - and at worst possibly misrepresents herself on camera - a microcosm of what is to come to her and her POV and......also she talks about her hands (it's Blanchett of course she talks about her hands ).......and time.......and "keeping time"

3. The very next scene where - "keeping time" in a way, begins......... the previous scene now melds into her worldview - and embarrasses a student who either deserves to be embarrassed or doesn't deserve it at all - and sets her character up as depending on your POV - a victim or villain........not merely a rethink of a character later which happens fairly often (Memento for one, etc) - but a rethink of the film and central character at the start

Apocalypse Now
Manhattan
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Zodiac
The Social Network
Saving Private Ryan
Reservoir Dogs
Magnolia

Scream (and Scream 2...)
Zodiac
Mr. Klein
The Social Network
Don't Look Now
Promising Young Woman
Blue Velvet
Kramer vs. Kramer
Beauty and the Beast
When a Stranger Calls

Señor Spielbergo's West Side Story and Temple of Doom were the ones that instantly came to mind so I'll just mention those and be off

Like 10 posts in this thread and I have to be the one who mentions "I believe in America" ffs - why do you make me do this shit?

2 odd ones - Dog Day Afternoon has a great and oddly jarring opening - love the shot of the vibrant city and graveyard and you see Sonny's wife etc...... and when the Elton John song gets turned off in the car - that's the end of music in that stupendous movie entirely - and The Wild Bunch with those kids playing ........but playing at killing ....which, like Tar - is a great sick joke to start your film with and set the tone........the kids are like The Wild Bunch who ride past them and nod because game recognizing game  

A History of Violence

Great shouts

incendies:



children of men:



lost in translation:

Carrie (which I posted yesterday in "Best Horror 1976", recopied) and Oldboy:


* Carrie (1976) The opening scene is remarkable in how it reduces - and I mean that as a positive not a bullshit term - girls to their common sexuality (De Palma shoots it like Porn, naturally) - young, playful, unruly and dangerous, threatening........what happens to Carrie at the start is quite dark in narrative thematic ways:

Carrie's descent is linked to her "adult" onset ......the blood that comes from her is later drawn by her from others ..........and surrounds her rampage (and that is dumped on her, etc) - what "blood" means changes ...... from the opening it takes on an ironic, painful and awful duality of Life and Death.......rarely does horror think so much or is it presented visually in such a coherent way......

* Oldboy (2003) This is a briiliant opening because we see what Oh Dae-su is like before being imprisoned but that's not the opening - the opening is the famous shot below - which in any other movie seems like the climax -so when it cuts to the flashback we await that scene and it comes so soon it's kind of shocking - where is this movie going?.....it is almost coded in visual form to us by the director ......."you ain't seen nothing yet" ......and that's a tip off to the plot: in most films 15 years imprisonment is the plot........in Oldboy it's just the set-up of the plot etc.

There are people I know irl - more than 1 anyway - who have stopped watching The Conversation - my #2 all time - in the opening scene itself (!) - because they thought there was something wrong with the sound

Has any American movie started so mysteriously - that's not a gun, it's a microphone! .......that revisits its opening scene - and several pieces of dialog from that scene - that much.......and whose dialog "changes" going from mundane to sinister with each replaying of it ......

The opening scene is also quite funny.......Harry Caul gets spotted twice despite not wanting to be spotted.......in fact Harry gets spotted or revealed throughout the film ......you only see how funny it is on a 2nd viewing (or in my case 1,000 viewings) but there is something gloriously odd about being spotted - and mocked - at the beginning........by a mime